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"This is a superb book...
this is an extraordinary book.
NME

"A work ot real passion and
musical scholarship."
ROLLING STONE

"This book is brilliant..."

IjIAGE COSMIC HELD GUIDE

Julian Cope

For all the Musibians of the original Krautrock-
scene: this book is my opportunity to thank rfll of
you visionaries, fuck-ups, gurus & magicians of
the W. German Krautrock-scene who created a
• blaze of white lightning in the early 70s
when all arbupd us was the urtless drywank
.of ELP, the spiritual airbrushing of Yes.and,
by far the worst of all, the formica-
mantras of Dgrk Side of the Moon-
period Pink Floyd. Thank you for
keeping me sane, and for the music
. of True-genius wlfich becomes
jk\ * more whole and more Holy
W 1 every day.

"Brilliantly resed^ched,

( Krautrocksampler abounds
with relevations. And Cope's
enthusiasm is contagious verging on
lethal.. you get the feeling Cope missed his
true vocation - a sort of lysergic Lester Bangs,
on the next Head Heritage Cosmic Field Guide.'"

'What a great book!" JOHN PEEL

KRAUTROCKSAMPLER

One Head's Guide to the Great Kosmische Muxik -1968 Onwards

Julian Cope

HEAD HERITAGE -1996 C.E.

2ND EDITION

First published in Great Britain in 1995 (Common Era)
by Head Heritage (A division of K.A.K. Ltd.)

2nd Edition 1996 (Common Era)

Photographs

Front cover: the image of Shrat is a detail from the LP Yeti by Amon Duul II.
Other photographs are taken from LP jackets from the author's library.

Two chapters, "A Little History of Krautrock Rising" and "Can: Any Colour is
Bad" were originally published in British magazine The Wire, in December
1994 and January 1995 (Common Era).

"A Little History of Krautrock Rising" also appeared in translated form in the
German magazine Spex, Spring 1995CE, under the title "Kosmische
Echos".

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage or
retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except
by a reviewer who may quote brief passages.

ISBN: 0-9526719-1-3

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Appendix

Contents

Introduction 1
Prehistoric Underground 4
A Little History of Krautrock Rising 9
Faust 21

The Greatest Gimmick of All.

Tangerine Dream 28

1967-73: Froese's Paranoia-from "Electronic Meditation"
to "Atem".

Neu! 40

Thank You Michael Rother, Thank You Klaus Dinger
From Kraftwerk to La Dusseldorf via Cluster & Harmonia...
An attempted Brief Un-ravelment of Neu!

Can 50

Any Colour is Bad.

Amon Dutil I & II 59

The Grimreaper is a Krautrocker and Other Stories.

Timothy Leary & Ash Ra Tempel 68

Kosmische Musik meets Sci-Fi

Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser & The Cosmic Couriers 78

Sci-Fi Musik to the End of a Dream

50 Kosmische Classics 91

The Full Spectrum of Krautrock Musik Reviewed &
Re-appraised

Introduction

I was a teenage Krautrocker. I wrote this short history because
of the way I feel about the music, that its supreme Magic &
Power has lain Unrecognised for too long. Krautrock was not
played by just any old early ’70s German rock band. It was a
Powerful Pre-punk attitude achieved by the Pioneering few -
the Ur-punk, those at the very beginning. Krautrock is what
Punk would have been if Johnny Rotten alone had been in
charge - a kind of Pagan Freakout LSD Explore-the-god-in-
you-by-working-the-animal-in-you Gnostic Odyssey. A sort of
very fit Hawkwind without the Doomsday Science-Fiction.
Krautrock has been obscured in the eyes of the public, who may
be unaware that it was as Holy as the Stooges, Sun Ra and the
MC5 all on one stage. Or that it was transcendental Cosmic
Fuck-rock played by Superfit amphetamine Visionary Poet-
druids and always had an attitude-to-the-Moooon!

I did not have to dig through the musty corners of my record
library for this information - my Krautrock all sits together, a
huge wad of it, next to the Psychedelia, the Sly and Funkadelic
LPs, the Scott Walker LPs - the stuff that is now accepted as
classic music, but got me labelled a queer, a freak, or just plain
fucking mad. I’m not a completist, but I have only written about
records that I have in my own library. And writing this book
inevitably caused me to fill necessary holes in my collection, so
a brand new Krautrock revival has taken place. I’d had many
before: in 1977, on meeting the Liverpool punkscene; in 1984,
when I met my then new manager Cally, a Krautrock disciple

supreme; and most recently since 1991, when my guitar tech
Rizla Deutsche put Neu 2 on in the tour bus. Here we go again,
I thought, and here we surely have.

When I decided to write this Krautrocksampler in September
1994 (CE), it was surprising but not bewildering to discover
that here was one of thee Great Untold Visionary Stories. I read
of those beautiful German post-war artists and I cried my heart
out. If I had been a young German in the 1960s I would have
played Krautrock or died. No way could I have lived with the
knowledge that my parents’ generation had had dealings in a
crime beyond Biblical proportions. I’d have been on a Rock-it
to Mars - which is precisely the path that the best German rock-
’n’roll artists followed. As I researched behind this High-mag-
ick musick, I discovered the obvious. Krautrock was borne on
the high East wind that soared above the rage of the 1960s
British and American scenes.

Krautrock transcended all this and more.

Because it had to.

In this mini-history, I’ve tried to explain who were these Ger¬
man underground heroes, spoken of in hushed tones, but
unheard by most. Faust, Can, Neu!, Amon Diiul I and II, Ash
Ra Tempel, Tangerine Dream, Cluster, La Dusseldorf, Harmo-
nia, Popol Vuh, etc., etc. Why did the whole West German rock
scene continue to make LPs of acid freakout music in wild op¬
art sleeves long into the ’70s? And why was a standard album
by any of the above far more extreme than even thee Most
extreme British and American equivalents, excluding only
such legends as the Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray” (which
some Krautrock fans would consider tame in comparison with
certain tracks that could be mentioned, e.g. Ash Ra Tem-
pel/“Amboss”.) This little history attempts to explain the rea¬
sons, but it can never truly explain the music of a whole
Youth-nation working out their blues. There was a fire burning
in the souls of post-war German youth that somehow needed to
be, not fanned, not put out, nor added to with petrol - but rather
that fire needed to be allowed to bum. And burn it did. With an
intensity that could have changed the very fabric of the West
had it taken place in Britain or the USA. But that was not the

- --ure of the fire, so it was never to be. Instead, we are left with
he ieaacy of the daring German Youth-dance away from their
ent past And Krautrock is it - some of the most astonishing,
evocative, heroic glimpses of Man at his Peak of Artistic

Magic.

CHAPTER 1

Prehistoric

Underground

W. Germany in the early '60s

er early 1960s, whilst fashion and pop music danced togeth-

ac y oss the skles of Britain and the USA, the rest of Eurone
"! e , re y Watched The French affected not to give a damn They
had already adopted Le ’50s rock’n’roll style which would sus^

troops so German radio was very quick to pick up on rock-

accents. But they also saw the huge American cars driven bv
the troops on leave, and they learned to love the whole stvte
They learned to love chewing-gum, Coca-Cola 1*1 a
everything else they saw as good from the USA Like Japan

^'"'7 showered wi.h sotVcS
hefty thumb-prints on ^

- x peri mental music — and in Karlheinz Stockhausen, they
-Iready had the greatest modem composer living right there
-imongst them. Born in 1928, Stockhausen was part of an
ancient, ever-changing tradition. He had studied under the
Tench mystic, Olivier Messiaen, and grown up with the com¬
ing new influx of experimental composers, such as Pierre
Boulez, Karel Goeyvaerts and John Cage. Stockhausen was a
visionary in every way. His mind saw and his ears heard things
quite differently to other people. By 1958, he was positioning
musicians and audiences in strange formations. Sometimes
audiences encircled the musicians, sometimes banks of loud¬
speakers blasted the music away from the listeners, but always
a great deal of experiment and always the possibility that this
was it - a new way. By 1960, he had performed the outrageous
sonic klang called Kontakte , an electronic piece that sounds
o\ ertly modern even today. Still seven years away from the first
synthesizer, Stockhausen achieved a sound that was violent,
percussive, dizzying - it even had his cohort and contemporary
Pierre Boulez dumbfounded. And as the ’60s progressed,
Stockhausen became an icon to all aspiring new West German
artists. His wild music was taking him to New York, London,
Paris, and proved that being himself could still earn the German
artist a place in the international sphere.

But though Stockhausen was a huge influence to young
artists, they still had the problem of Right Now! Experimental
music was fine, but everyone continued to return to rock’n’roll
lor its instant gratification, its instant achievement, and its
instant entertainment at dances every Saturday night. And once
the West Germans had learned how to play pop music, they
would next have to learn how to truly assimilate it into their cul¬
ture, rather than merely aping the British and American groups.

But the jump from fans of rock’n’roll to rock’n’roll artists is
a very big one. And for most of the 1960s, it was a jump that
West Germans were unable to make. By 1965, Edgar Froese,
later to lead Tangerine Dream, was playing standards such as
In the Midnight Hour” three times a night in Johnny Halli-
day’s Paris club, “because it was the best song in our reper¬
toire.” But Froese was not at that time a prototype Krautrocker
Rising. He was not yet looking for a true German sound. He

was a working musician in a rock’n’roll band at a time when
most of the future German stars were not even involved in pop¬
ular music. Also in 1965, future Can leader, Holger Czukay,
was playing dance music in his spare time, as guitarist and
accordionist (!) for the Jetliners, and studying under Karlheinz
Stockhausen during the day. Yet at this stage, no attempt was
casually made to reconcile the black-based voodoo-dance of
rock’n’roll and the remedial candy melodies of pop with the
white intellectualism of post-war West Germany. The German
art scene was quite a law unto itself and many of West Ger¬
many’s future stars had already dismissed pop & rock’n’roll as
kids’ music - entertaining but ultimately disposable compared
to real art. So the West Germans pursued all the ex-patriot
American and British rock’n’rollers in their own country and
made them play right out on the edge of their capabilities. They
needed their entertainment to be Hot!

The Monks as Missing Link

It was the West German demand for the real thing that made the
Beatles get so good performing at Hamburg’s Star Club. If they
hadn’t been great or at least extremely entertaining, then they
would have been out on their collective asses. But there is one
much greater proof of Germany’s Out-there-ness in the mid-
’60s, in the form of a 1965 album called Black Monk Time *.
Recorded by The Monks, an out-there collaboration of five
young American ground crew from a U.S. airbase in West Ger¬
many, their album is one of the most chilling electrifying freak-
outs of all time. It still has its feet in the early ’60s, with vocal
styles as bizarre as Doris Day or the Four Seasons, and archaic
song titles like “Drunken Maria”, “Higgle-Dy-Piggle-Dy” and
The Ventures-style “Blast Off!”. Ha ha ha. But the straight
names belie the truly underground perversity of the Monks’
songwriting. High falsetto shrieks tell of lost love, confident
agreeing college-boy backing vocals scold the singer for being
too wimpy, but always over a backing track of insanity so
intense and simultaneously such speedball entertainment, that
no British pop group of the ’60s ever got close to rivalling their

* Now available on CD on Israphon Records ’ ISR003, the Monks' LP is a lost classic.

' >und. Only certain US garage rock B-sides of the mid-’60s
perhaps equalled the Monks’ sound. But even these had com¬
mercial considerations to think of, so the Monks’ sound wipes
;ne floor with all but the most savage. And NO-ONE ever came
up with a whole album of such dementia. The Monks’ Black
Monk Time is a gem born of isolation and the horrible deep-
down knowledge that no-one is really listening to what your
saying. And the Monks took full artistic advantage of their
lucky/unlucky position as American rockers in a country that
was desperate for the real thing. They wrote songs that would
have been horribly mutilated by arrangers and producers had
they been back in America. But there was no need for them to
clean up their act, as the Beatles and others had had to do on
returning home, for there were no artistic constraints in a coun¬
try that liked the sound of beat music but had no idea about its
lyrical content. On “Complication”, the singer howls the word
“Complication!” over a savage fuzz guitar, over & over, finally
rhyming it with “Constipation!”, before the backing vocalists
join in a furore of how:

“People die, People die for you.

People kill. Yes, they will for you.

People go to their deaths for you.”

Each lyric is spat out with the true contempt of forces personnel
who know that their songs will not be listened to, merely heard
as part of a Saturday night’s drunken entertainment. But for all
their listeners’ lack of a need for meaning, the Monks them¬
selves sure as hell put in as much as they, as songwriters, need¬
ed. On the opening song, “Monk Time”, the singer Gary Burger
introduces the members of the group then launches into a vio¬
lent diatribe:

“We don’t like the army,

What army, Who cares what army?

Why do you kill all those kids in Vietnam?

My brother died in Vietnam.

James Bond? Who’s he?

Stop it, Stop it, I don’t like it
Pussy Galore is coming down
We like that,

We don’t like the atomic bomb,

Stop it, stop it,

I don’t like it.”

Any audience seeing a performance of this intensity would
have changed their lifestyles immediately. And of utmost
importance to the explanation of Krautrock is the Monks’ odd
ability to cross from one musical style to another, at a time
when this was a heinous crime in Britain or America. In 1964,
no beat groups played the lame jangle of yesteryear. By 1965,
Merseybeat was so old as to be extinct, doo-wop was prehis¬
toric, and folk-rock was a year old and therefore old news. But
the Monks were able to collect all these styles, assimilate them
and synthesise them together because they were in West Ger¬
many, not in spite of it. This is very important. West Germany
was a late developer. In West Germany, style was far more
important than fashion. Things moved so fast in Britain and the
big American cities that a look could arrive, be adopted and
then jettisoned by everyone on the scene in a matter of months.
It was the same on the pop music scene. When Paul Rothschild
produced the first Doors’ LP, he refused to let the musicians use
any wah-wah pedals, fuzz-boxes or distortion pedals. He want¬
ed to keep out gimmicks which would sound old-fashioned in
18 months’ time. This was an over-cautious approach but it
worked. It made the Doors’ music timeless. Yet by the ’90s The
Monks’ music is just as timeless precisely because it does adopt
the gimmicks of the moment. The Monks win through, because
they adopt every gimmick of every moment and somehow rec- *
oncile the lot in a sheer joyful abandonment of brilliant song¬
writing and arrangements, and a neurotic obsession with
recording everything with the VU meters on red. The Monks
were bom of the same insane clubs as the Beatles, only three
years later, and such mayhem and insanity seeps through every
pore of their music. Wild call and answer arias like an acid West
Side Story are yelped, hollered and yodelled in unison - the
whole group. Impeccable. Utter machine gun guitar freakouts
with endless descending organ, drum clatters of the First Tribe,
and all because the combination of rock’ n’roll and the Germans
created an entrancing mania akin to Wagner’s operas. Yes, the
Germans needed their rock’n’roll.

CHAPTER 2

A Little History of
Krautrock Rising

John and Yoko & the Paris Riots

By 1967, the Federal Republic of Germany was rocking. The
Rattles had even produced West Germany’s first international
- The Witch”, but the groups still sounded like everyone
e se They had taken a while to embrace the whole trip, but that
had always been the German way. Even the Roman historians
r .a been prompted to comment that, whilst the German tribes
v e re the hardest to Christianise, God help the tribes north of the
Rhine when the newly-Christianised Germans went on their
S m-again kick. And the newly-rocking West Germans were
N -again for shitdamn-sure. Briefly, during 1967, West Ger¬
many seemed to become a province of British and American
: .. .are. Psychedelia came six months late but stayed forever.
L ke Detroit’s Stooges, who were so provincial that they were
xti 11 wearing grown-out Troggs haircuts in 1969, West German
zr >ups were slow to pick up on a trend but even slower to put it
c: - n The phasing which could be heard as a fashionable extra
< ^ early 1967 British pop hits would still be heard on 1974
Uest German Krautrock epics, fully assimilated into the style
of the ^and. The op-art, pop-art and psychedelic light show
un-:L.' w hich had defined British and American record-covers
i n the 1 ^67/8 period would come to dominate the whole of the
J970s West German underground.

gearchangTinto overdrive^ ^ CaUSed this musical

proval. In West Germany this Amenca frowned in disap-

“i* community kn^all ^Zlo^"' The

andshewasafineandirKr.il-;™ f° Uno - She was visible

>ng John Lennon, she o ave her h ah " 1 ' m ° S ' ° fa "’ by pick "
Beatles’ kids music right rh ! g u artIst,c approval to the
w. Germany, ta wStl™ T “T' For »"“ »
group. Also in 1968 (he rims • p 8h 10 form a rock'n’roll
Molotov cocktails at the police” anTc,™ st “ dems hurl '"«
“Sa»e petrol, Burn Cm? \S s m” dS '“'<™ apraying
Alexander Dubchek’s C/echn i , , R ssians sent tanks into
of freedom in any w av “t' Sl ° V,k, “' rMnforei "« «* Meal
Copycat riots in Berlin took nr,'"^' eS( German hippies.

-he new freakou, l^t^S »f

acid freeform group Tangerine n Edgar Froese s new
young bass-less trio led fifthc rt ’ 3 Psy Free ’ a veiy
mus 'c was somemMlrin,^' d ™ mer ' S '“»- The
and Psy Free guitarist Alex ° Ut there ' Schu,( ze

to all capitalism - playing for hours'frTf Vehemently °PPosed
West German pop Ldvals folfn “ / ?** n ' ght after ni S ht -
and the first greaUveTwa, 1 96« F ^ "f* ° f Monterey
which featured two of the grnim EsSener Son tag Festival,
Underground, ’ nSpiringt0 the Ge ™an

Sandefs’Fug .OneofSeGeL?^^ ° f Invend °n and Ed
festival was a politico muSc^on gr ° UPS inVited t0 p,ay at the '
Hours before the show k wl? COmmune called Amon DUiil.
peace was at ** ^ sho « «ved

that night, known forever after as A ^ n°- PS aCtUa,ly P la yed
II. Groups were all co-operatives now and"*' andAmon DUU1
agers were illegal. The new scene andnon “P ia ying man¬
wide age ranges. One day Holger ' nUed t0 deve lop across

his students about his own fi y W3S talking t0 one of

hausen. The young student a ^ Kar,hein * Stock-

Karoli, was notimpressedHe^v^^^ 51 Ca " ed Michael
am the Walrus”, and Holge^CzukT* *“* ‘ eacherthe Bead es’ “I

o £

cal ;her student of Stockhausen, and suggested they form a

- - p Wlth Michael Karoli, 10 years their junior. This weird

in' ' ° f Stockhausen and Psychedelia would soon be

j? ed The Can ‘ And 11 was a show that would run and run...

)le

k- ! Stockhausen Sees the Jefferson Airplane

in ‘ nein f Stockhausen is centra I to the entire history of
K. -utrock. And one massive piece of work, 1966’s Hymnen, is
1 r • " tal t0 th at whole unconscious movement. Because Stock-
g hausen is also the most important living composer and has
“ ir , ed so many different movements and musicians, it’s easy
° understate this fact. But the release of Hymnen had repercus-

- - throughout all of W. Germany, and not least in the heads

■ > oung artists. It was a huge 113 minute piece, subtitled

Anthems for Electronic and Concrete Sounds”. Hymnen was
: : Jed up into four long LP sides, entitled Region I, Region II
Region III and Region IV. But why was it so important to the

- nans. In short, because it took “Deutschland, Deutschland
ber Alles ’ and screwed it up, screwed it down, played it

- - ugh weird electronic gizmos, distorted it horribly and basi-

treated it pretty badly. The German public ALL furry-
reaked ' The left-wing didn’t see the funny side at all and

.' ed hlm of appealing to the basest German feelings whilst

; ne n “ ht win 8 hate d him for vilifying their pride and joy and
-nng the Europeans laugh at them. Stockhausen had just

- ..rned from six months at the University of California, where

- had lectured on experimental music. Among those at his
-- mars were the Grateful Dead’s Jeiry Garcia and Phil Lesh
Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane, and many other psychedelic’

uMcians. Far from snubbing the new music, Stockhausen was

- en at a Jefferson Airplane show at the Filmore West and was

- - >ted as saying that the music “.. .really blows my mind ” So
a-:>t the young German artists loved Stockhausen for
embracing their own rock’n’roll culture, they doubly loved him
' ' a hat they recognised as the beginning of a freeing of all
German symbols. By reducing “Deutschland, Deutschland

-er Alles to its minimum possible length, Stockhausen had

- Rifled it. It had much the same effect as a British man or

woman hearing an ice-cream van outside - some kind of
response is triggered whether they want ice-cream or not.
Stockhausen had unconsciously diffused a symbol of oppres-.
sion, and so enabled the people to have it back.*

Mama Diiiil & her Sauerkrautband.

But the new rock’n’roll in W. Germany was not rock’n’roll at
all. It was a meltdown music-form which defied all categories
but that which the W. German musicians called it - Kosmische
mustc. The term has been credited to Edgar Froese, future
eader of Tangerine Dream, but in 1969 all the young idealistic
W. German musicians talked about Kosmische music with a
great reverence, a great idealism, as though they knew that it
was their way to the stars. Beethoven, their tragic hero, had said
that music was far greater than philosophy, and the communes
and collectives of Beautiful & Dutiful young idealists came
alive all over W. Germany, determined to rid themselves of all
memories of their parents’ despicable recent history - to lose '
all these pent up feelings in a Great Rush To The New Kosmis-
che Music.

n ..^ U J he ‘ reaF mus icians had left Amon Diiiil I to join Amon
Duul II, a process that would continue over the years. But the I
dram on Amon Diiiil I was so great that they were soon reduced I
to one strumming drumming chanting male/female mass, like
the greatest Plastic Ono Band session ever. It was the time of
communal Freakout albums, inspired specifically by the 1967
Hapshash & The Coloured Coat LP, a London recording
almost a year old, which had been led by the designers Nigel
Weymouth and Michael English, and the producer Guy
Stevens. One extremely psychedelic weekend, Amon Diiiil I
recorded (or over-recorded, to be more precise) one enormous
session, which lasted so long that three of their LPs - Psyche- |

* During all this fighting, it was casualty overlooked that the German national anthem

aZeZsoTsilT, 10 nm Tl ° n ** ™<re7JeZonfy

appears on Side 2, along with the Russian anthem and a whole erouD of A fri ml
anthems But the effect was stil, the same. Stockhausen had expZZVLZZe Z'

!■ ~ "identification signs for the nation... a pop-art ges-

... omparable to the banal, everyday pictorial motifs of the American pod ^
amsts, whose work Stockhausen knew so well," wrote his biographer, Michael Kurn. } n

oi ' uierground , Collapsing and the double-album Disaster

ot. - . ^e from it. Some claim that they split from music alto-
;s- j «I o continue in a purely political way, but kept up the illu-

fc years with seemingly new LPs. The first Amon Diiul
W. rd> are extraordinary classics and extremely raw, like
Mor-c Ores playing neverending versions of The Mothers’
P*«um of the Son of Monster Magnet” and the Stooges
at '.Hi ues”. But they are dosed with a higher level of vibe than
-s xr. . n cr freakout records - relentless, uplifting and full of the
le : gimmicks that all work perfectly. Amon Diiul did not
re .. ng, but they laid the beginnings of Krautrock with their
ic : and with one particular song on Psychedelic Under-
a The name of the song translated as “Mama Diiul and

it uerkraut band Start Up!” With that title, the lazy British

d 'ess at last had something to latch on to. Aha, we’ll call it

s v /rock...
e
!1

s ~ ~ « p irst Rumblings of Kosmische Music

4 * < Germany was full of supposed ‘head’ groups by now. But
I » f them still did not sound remotely German, slavishly
1 ' - ' be Hard Rach!!! Others, like Embryo, Emergency and

Control, mixed obvious Teutonics into unsuccessful
l ' a ith British/American rock and jazz. But in the mean-

: cur e \rnon Duiil II, the musical half of the commune, had
■ worded an amazing free-flowing LP called Phallus Dei, for
I thi British Liberty label. Its overtly mysterious sleeve first con-
1 fnt r:ed me when I was 13 and standing in Tamworth Wool-
I r.: - I was with my Welsh grandfather, whom I asked about
I c* meaning of Phallus Dei. “Bloody Hell, Don’t tell your
I ■rther." he snorted. “That means God’s cock!” And with the
I ideave of that 20 minute title track, both branches of Amon
I IX- - had proved their commitment to the new cosmic political
I cocnr une scene. This record was very extreme, both the chim-
m*. und and dizzy two-colour sleeve like something from the
I .Vh 1 >or Elevators’ International Artists label in Texas.

- ^ s mething else again was stirring in Cologne. The
Sfc •. • - -~'en/Psychedelia-inspired Can were now a five-piece
recor ding at Schloss Norvenich, the castle home of their patron,

Mani Lohe. All except one was in his 30s and they were a
frightening combination of exuberance and great experience.
These were exceptional people with an exceptional musical
vision: “an anarchist community,” said their organist, Irmin
Schmidt. Though Can’s first pieces were situations more like
performance art, their new singer, a black ex-teacher called
Malcolm Mooney, continually pushed them further into the
severest most restrictive rock’n’roll, “...towards the Velvet
Underground, as Holger Czukay later said. The shows were
fantastic, though Malcolm Mooney had a tendency to freak out,
collapse, or attack the audience. But it was the release of their
first album that opened up the whole scene. Monster Movie is a
stone classic. There was still no visionary in any big record-
company willing to put money into the new W. German sound.
But when Monster Movie was released on Music Factory
Records in August 1969, the tiny 500 pressing sold out imme¬
diately and changed the whole W. German rock scene. It was
the first album of the scene that sounded as powerful and as well
recorded as standard American and British records, yet it
retained the brooding German Velvets-inspired sound. Some
idea of the attitude of the Kosmische music brigade at this time
can be gained by merely reading the credits on the first Can
album:

Irmin Schmidt - Adminaspace co-ordinator & organ laser,
Jaki Leibezeit - propulsion engineer & mystic space chart read¬
er, Holger Czukay - hot from Vietnam; technical laboratory
chief & red-armed bass, Michael Karoli - sonar & radared
guitar pilot, Malcolm Mooney - linguistic space communica- ,
tor.

The Rise of Ohr Records & The Birth of Kraftwerk

In Berlin, the crazed young trio Psy Free split. Edgar Froese,
frustrated with his current situation, persuaded drummer Klaus
Schultze to collaborate in a new Tangerine Dream. The arch¬
experimentalist Conrad Schnitzler completed the T. Dream
line-up to create the awesome and freeform acid-blitz LP Elec¬
tronic Meditation. This was truly the Kosmische music they
had dreamed off. If “A Saucerful of Secrets” had been played

1 fcj nppy multi-dimensional space beings instead of the
appal -ugly insipid Waters, Wright, Gilmour & Mason, then it
d surely have sounded as real as this. And Electronic Med-
| masuv. was given special treatment, too. Some genius at the
kto£e W. German record-company Metronome had finally
! Caught on to the new sound. They asked the record producer,
Ptt; Meisel, to put together an especially different Heavy
txxl w ith the accent on Germanic-sounding groups and spe¬
cs*: "ackaging. Meisel called the label Ohr (German for ‘ear’),
jr ^sked Reinhard Hippen, the acclaimed young industrial
•tr to design the first five LP sleeves with a uniformity that
d make the label instantly aligned with Right Now. The
arw ts were brutal and crudely finished, but delightfully so.
ttppen's recurring theme used the broken bodies of dolls, and
ob the cover of Electronic Meditation , a headless doll is trapped
r e wires of an early synthesizer patch-bay.

A 1 the early Ohr records were interesting and all of them
•. 'd. On the LP Fliesbandbabys Beatshow, Floh de Cologne
pia> ed an impenetrable wordy structured garage music, like an
2 . .?able Mothers of Invention, a bierkeller Fugs. Lots of
-ting and urgent socialist messages breaking up the already
n~'hackle sound. Much better, and occasionally incredible,
» ere Guru Guru, a heavy rock trio with its heart in the free-rock
at the MC5 were never allowed to record. No vocals except
*ected ‘thing’ voices: scary, repeated and not very often at all.

V nly just huge epic instrumentals, LPs of two or three tracks
a side. Their debut album UFO was a spaced menage a trois of
* > Division, Deep Purple and a more Kosmische version of

V Young’s experimental feedback frenzies on Arc . They
ci - Id be faster than anyone, but their greatest songs were Glenn
Branca symphonies eight years ahead of time. And their titles
m! ne, man. Shit! “Stone In”, “Der LSD-Marsch”, “Space-
rftip‘\ “Oxymoron”, “Der Ekectrolurch”.

The Ohr experiment was a tremendous success, and opened
jj :he way for more conservative companies to take risks. In a
a untry as big as West Germany, there was a place for many
t any groups and Poly dor, Metronome, BASF & Phillips, Ger¬
man industry equivalents of Britain’s EMI and America’s CBS,
can to take more risks. Though most of the early efforts

would be tame British/American copyists, the uncertaint\
amongst German businessmen about what constituted the Hip
New Sound ensured that certain experimentalists inevitabh
sneaked through. And one of the most bizarre releases of earh
1970 was RCA Records Tonefloat LP by the quintet Organisa¬
tion. Though delivered in a typically colourful ‘heavy’ sleeve
of the period, that is as far as Organisation’s alignment with
contemporary rock went. Led by Ralf Hutter & Florian Schnei¬
der, later leaders of the huge international group Kraftwerk, the
group’s roots began at the Renschied Kunstakadamie where the
duo had studied Karlheinz Stockhausen. With flute-based
musical pieces such as “Milk Rock”, “Rhythm Salad” and the
creaky percussive grooveless bossanova title-track, Tonefloat
was a major-label anachronism from the moment it was
released. And, like the ingenuous German corporation Phillips
who released the equally bizarre Cluster LP soon afterwards,
we can only presume that the signing of Organisation was
quickly filed away in RCA’s box called ‘Interesting Corporate
Mistakes’.

Soon after this. Organisation became Kraftwerk and
released their self-titled first LP. But despite the name-change
and shift to the Polygram label, the group was still a ramshackle
flute and percussion-driven experimental unit. Whilst includ¬
ing wa-guitar and a drummer, Kraftwerk was a bizarre though
mainly successful attempt to make an entirely German record.
On the album opener, “Ruckzack”, Kraftwerk sped up at will,
slowed down at will, and had no groove at all. On the last track
of the album, a 10 minute freakout called “Vom Himmel
Hoch , synthesizers emulated dive-bombing raids and actual
recordings of explosions punctuated the music in a shattering
way. “Kraftwerk” is a strictly German word which translates as
both “Men at Work” and “Powerplant”, and Ralf Hutter and
Florian Schneider were both insistent experimentalists with a
particular Vision. Unreleased recordings from that time reveal
them to have been in a constant state of flux. Kraftwerk 2 would
open with “Klingklang”, an ever changing 17-minute experi¬
mental mantra with a Stockhausen-inspired beginning. And the
group was to change beyond all recognition after their huge
1974 hit album Autobahn. But always Kraftwerk returned to

ng fixations, gearchanges included. Perhaps it is the
psy che of the post-war West Germans - unconscious-
■ the USA through its thousands of miles of easily
traight roads. Certainly, the grey metronomic driving
.mess of the Velvet Underground manifested in most
an bands, though of all the British bands of that time
I r ay be only Roxy Music who could ever claim a true
influence.

living mentality in West German music was forged on
n that travels south in a great arc from the far-west-
f Cologne to Munich in the south, taking in the cities
Coblenz, Frankfurt, Mainz, Mannheim, Stuttgart,
i .nc \usburg. The thirst for music on this circuit alone was
n :ze to the entire British scene. West Germany was by
biggest market in Europe. But the autobahn was only
hree major conurbations that the rock’n’roll live circuit
u >upply, and it soon became clear that West German
. jld sustain itself without ever looking out to the inter¬
vene again. But it was just then that one of the most
'or contributors of all appeared on the Krautrock

i Kaiser on the Warpath - Rolf-Ulrich's Grand Design

kDtotch folk journalist is the last thing the scene expected. But
I-1 Irich Kaiser was a progressive in everything, and noto-
► mroughout the W. German Underground for being a man
. mission. He blew into Ohr Records and riled everyone
n mediately. Kaiser had already written about Tangerine
in his book Das Buck Der Neuen Pop-musik. Now he
with Edgar Froese over the definition of Kosmische
> k and said that it could be applied to all forms of music.
; Aad even more outrageously, he proved it. On being asked by
b -.dnessmen at Metronome to take over the running of Ohr
Ee*. rds, R-U Kaiser immediately signed Amon Diiul I and
e them a ‘head’ producer, the wondrously named Julius
Scr tenhelm. As organiser of the now legendary Essener Son-
II g Festival, Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser knew the members of Amon
t I and had Kosmische plans for them. And their first Ohr

album Paradieswarts Diiiil was an amazingly beautiful
freefolk epic, somewhere midway between an acoustic “White
Light/White Heat” and a Teutonic 1968 Red Crayola playing
the 13th Floor Elevators. Its three long fuzz-acoustic songs,
“Love is Peace”, “Snow Your Thirst, Sun Your Open Mouth”
and “Paramechanische Welt”, were Amon Duiil I’s glorious
swansongs before they rode off heroically into the sunset. And
the artistic success of Paradieswarts Duiil confirmed Kaiser’s
suspicion that many forms of the Kosmische music were out
there waiting to be found. He took the far-out buskers Witthuser
and Westrupp and turned them into an absolutely inspiring
Gothic chamber space-folk thing like mixing Neil Young’s On
the Beach with Frank Zappa’s Straight records releases, Tim
Buckley’s free-form album Starsailor , and also his earlier
Happy Sad and Goodbye and Hello LPs. In America, they
would certainly have recorded for ESP-Disk!

Impressed by Kaiser’s success at Ohr, the industry giant
BASF asked him to take over the Pilz label, their hip subsidiary.
In true Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser style, he kept control of Ohr and
annexed Pilz as a cosmic folk label. Pilz is German for ‘mush¬
room’, and that record-company’s logo was a fabulous pop art
Flyagaric.. .just about as Kosmische as they came. Rolf-Ulrich
transferred Witthuser and Westrupp to Pilz as a symbolic ges¬
ture, then proceeded to sign and influence his next big thing. Of
course, he dropped the entire roster overnight in the great road
to the ultimate Kosmische folk label.

Popol Vuh were Rolf-Ulrich’s next obsession, a group as big
as their name. The Popol Vuh is the Mayan Book of the Dead, a
terrifying mythology of a prehistoric Meso-American people
who survived until the 9th Century AD. But whilst R-U Kaiser
could perhaps influence this group, the real vision was in the
head and hands of its leader, the wonderful Florian Fricke.
Fricke had not chosen the name Popol Vuh lightly. He was here
to do magic and that’s a fact. The first album had already been
released by Liberty Records by the time Kaiser became
involved, and that album Affenstunde (“Monkey Hour”)
was already sending shockwaves throughout the German
Music-scene with its use of Moog synthesizer in a (gasp!) non-
classical setting. Affenstunde's peculiarly environmental form-

album Paradieswarts Diiiil was an amazingly beautiful
freefolk epic, somewhere midway between an acoustic “White
Light/White Heat” and a Teutonic 1968 Red Crayola playing
the 13th Floor Elevators. Its three long fuzz-acoustic songs,
“Love is Peace”, “Snow Your Thirst, Sun Your Open Mouth” I
and “Paramechanische Welt”, were Amon Diiiil I’s glorious
swansongs before they rode off heroically into the sunset. And
the artistic success of Paradieswarts Diiiil confirmed Kaiser’s
suspicion that many forms of the Kosmische music were out
there waiting to be found. He took the far-out buskers Witthuser
and Westrupp and turned them into an absolutely inspiring
Gothic chamber space-folk thing like mixing Neil Young’s On
the Beach with Frank Zappa’s Straight records releases, Tim
Buckley’s free-form album Starsailor , and also his earlier
Happy Sad and Goodbye and Hello LPs. In America, they
would certainly have recorded for ESP-Disk!

ess was huge news in 1971, and the German Sounds mag-
Readers’ Poll nominated them “Best Newcomer of the
• Popol Vuh were on Beat Club, and Fricke played his
■ synthesizer as a guest on T. Dream s Kostnische classic
_ ~>le-album Zeit.

gut for all this, the meeting of Florian Fricke with Rolf-
- Kaiser in late summer of 1971 reverberated all across
snsmische music scene. For Affenstunde’s follow-up
urn its predecessor’s dick into the dirt. Everything about In
■ linen Pharoas feels right. It is trance music, and Florian
was a master composer and quite capable of taking the
jnto dimensions unheard of by the other Kosmische
. ms. The whole of Side 2 of In Den Garten Pharoas was
• - m magic of “Vuh”. And I do not say high magic lightly,
r . „h" tunes the listener into the heavens like no other piece
. ever heard. It maintains an incredible hold on the listen-
. mch is the intensity of the piece, that “Vuh” actually can
-tuch to listen to in the wrong frame of mind, and dizzy-
the freedom of feeling the music engages. And R-U
- , new wonder boy, Florian Fricke, was on the way to a
tand inspiring career...

of the Brain label - Enter Cluster and Neu!

, the middle of 1971, Rolf Ulrich Kaiser was driving his
. ees mad. He stood over them whilst they worked. He
j ; nto their offices and balled them out whilst they were
to their bands, freaking out everyone concerned. His
- - powerful, but you needed him on your side. Two A&R
ed Bruno Wendel and Gunter Korber decided they
- ■ take any more, and started a record company of their
h was to be known as Brain, and was to become synony-
th some of the greatest Krautrock of all. Wendel &
wrought Guru Guru with them from Ohr, and immedi-
■ ■ j ned the extremely experimental Cluster. This duo was

t V - ophrenic mixture that had recorded one bizarre LP for
r - Hips Records. Prior to that, they had been the even
- trio Kluster, their third member being Conrad Schnit-
fcero-in-exile of T. Dream’s Electronic Meditation. Now

Schnitzler had left the group to pursue what would become a
career of hilarious over-achievement leaving Cluster as a duo -
just the poetically named Dieter Moebius & Hans-Joachim
Roedelius. Cluster were (and still are) a rare collaboration. Like
some bizarre husband and wife team, they let their machine¬
generated muse fire up, and they would sit there in front of it.
like a hot stove, and play until it didn’t feel good anymore
Early Cluster has a raging peace in it, a huge beating.heart.
planet-sized and awesome. But clothed in a skinny body which
contrives to keep you from hearing all of the unearthly power.

For their first Brain album, Cluster II, Moebius & Roedelius
were joined by the producer/engineer Conrad Plank. Though
involved on the earlier Phillips LP as engineer, here Plank co¬
wrote the music and produced the whole thing, creating an
incessant nightscape: a helicopter ride over miles of country¬
side, but the lights of the city ever present, and even occasion¬
ally flying right into the city itself and almost burning up in the
glare. Along with Dieter Dierks, Plank was the mainstay of all
the greatest Krautrock on record. Over the years, those two
engineers alone would be responsible for the combined sound
of Tangerine Dream, Neu!, Guru Guru, Kraftwerk, and Ash Ra
Tempel, a formidable weight to carry around.

Like all other heavy labels of the early ’70s, Brain had a fair
share of dreadful and contrived American/British copycat rub¬
bish, like The Scorpions and Jane. They also saw the demise of
Guru Guru. From free-rock to free jazz to free gift that you can’t
give away. One of Brain’s greatest releases was undoubtedly
number 1004, the soon-to-be-legendary Neu! But that’s a
whole other can of worms, in fact a whole other chapter (See
Neu! history.) Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser will appear again many times
throughout this book. But after Kaiser, Krautrock’s First Great
Conceptualist, there came another Second Great Conceptual-
ist. And again he was from the world of the media. But this man
was to make Krautrock international, and his name was Uwe
Nettlebeck...

fW Greatest Gimmick of All

Pro t tiea .-. as not to copy anything going on in the Anglo-Saxon
■■I wcene - and it worked ... "

Uwe Nettlebeck, 1973

IW Sound of Yourself Listening

i' no group more mythical than Faust. I bought my first
record over 22 years ago, but I could not tell you the
I Mr . ' of the group members off the top of my head. And I
w n n tell you the names of all their songs, though I know
Mbr _ . better than almost everything else in my record library.
I them live on their legendary 1973 tour, but you could
me 10 photos of Krautrock musicians, and I could not
pci ut the five members of Faust.

Fa ust worked under a conscious veil of secrecy akin to, and
liropr-.ng to, San Francisco’s The Residents. They were a con-
cc: . al band, and in isolation is how they were conceived. By
Pc cnd of 1970, it became clear to Kurt Enders, an A&R man
lor erman Polydor, that there was a place for the extreme new
Pc German rock music in the international rock’n’roll
vc* ere. But no-one had yet attempted an entirely new sound
Pa ^roke all of the imported rules of the British and American
ki' es. He told this to the music journalist, Uwe Nettlebeck,
•ti was extremely impressed and wanted to lead just such a
project

And so Faust was bom - as cold and antiseptically as that.
No, not really. It was a fabulous challenge and showed how.
very occasionally, visionaries in record companies have been
seen to get it absolutely right. Faust means ‘fist’, and a fist they
were. Who the hell knows what their rehearsals were like in the
Spring/Summer of 1971. Uwe Nettlebeck had spent Faust’s
large advance on building a studio at Wumme. This old con¬
verted schoolhouse, between Hamburg and Bremen, became
their place of learning (and de-learning) a style which was
fuzzy, funny and extremely uncommercial, yet busted out with
weird hooklines and extraordinary sounds. But when they
made their debut at the Musikhalle in Hamburg, the press hated
it. The audience didn’t know what to make of it, and so the
whole public thing started very badly for them in their home
country. And when the LP was released in late 1971, the sales
were so poor as to be as legendary as the group would some day
become. Some sources quote under one thousand records sold
in the first months of Faust being released.

But Faust were good. In fact, they had made a very special
first album. It just took time to get it. And when Polydor
released Faust in Britain, the strongest appeal of their LP was
that it was produced in clear vinyl, with a clear lyric sheet and a
clear jacket, emblazoned with a fist in X-ray. The effect was
dramatic. And at a time when a hype could kill a new band
stone-dead, even John Peel wrote that when he first saw the
album “... regardless of the music within, I had to acquire one.”
Peel played the album all the time, and my Krautrock mates and
I would all bore ourselves stupid, re-enacting the beginning of
it, whenever we hung out together or took the train into Birm¬
ingham. It was such a catchy bizarre sound. It sounded like
music from some parallel universe suspended in time and
played through the oldest radio...

Extremely overloaded over-recorded synthesizers and radio
static begin the album as fractions of “All you Need is Love”
and Satisfaction” burst in, followed by a vocal calling from
another room, then a pretty schoolhouse piano (of course!), into
a very arranged Zappa-esque horn piece which comes over a bit
Teutonic, a bit Lumpy Gravy- ish. And in two minutes of music,
Faust has taken you into the most inventive editing territory

roll has seen. Faust’s unexpected success in Britain
them to focus themselves here, and the second LP,
i Far , was actually released here first. Again, it was a
ck 'ecord - all black this time, with a black inner sleeve,

: ~ ack lettering on the record-label, and a set of 12"xl2"
it illustrated each song. But this album was somehow
confident that the first one. So Far opens with my
• ever Faust song. “It’s A Rainy Day (Sunshine Girl)”
ptations call and answer chorus over a boom-boom-
3m Mo Tucker one-chord trance-out. The rhythm gui-
.or the same level as the Velvet Underground’s Live 1969 ,
** ^x solo is my favourite on record. The production is
and wants to be heard. It’s the same throughout the
_nd proved that Faust cut it as an un-straight pop band,
ne way early Roxy Music did. Polydor also thought so,
. eased “So Far” as a single. The B-side, “It’s a bit of a
reminds me of something from the third Velvet’s album.
- bere were Faust coming from? Though their influences are
Ltely unimportant, when a group is as original as Faust,
p< ssible not to be overtly inquisitive as to how they came
■ * bibulous sound. And so to catch certain glimpses of other
s attitude in their music is to heave a sigh of relief that,
thes were human after all.

iide The Dream Syndicate -The Roots of Faust

: f Faust ever ripped-off something, then they did it the way
be greatest artists rip-off - that is, Directly. They took the
Machine’s “We did it Again” (which is just The Kinks’
a Really Got Me” in any case) and called it “Baby”. Faust
used the Mothers of Invention’s own archetypes, to the
nt of copying Zappa’s most annoying habit of playing
*Le uie Louis” on distorted organ a la Uncle Meat. It made sense
.\:ppa & the Mothers. By 1966, they were already old gits
mfk d come through endless bar bands playing “Louie Louie”
r er> night for 25 years. When the Mothers played “Louie
L e*\ they were laughing at the sheer boring ridiculousness
or - - u-ha-ha-I-can-play-this-with-no-hands-F m-so-fucking-
jh r But when Faust played it, they loved it. When they heard

the Mothers’ crap slack double-album Uncle Meat , they heard)
“Louis Louis” and vibed on it for real... They loved rock’n’roll^
to death. There was no irony at all. The Western Music seen®
was a mythical and ancient currency to be plundered. And the>
were certainly music fans of a very high order. The last part of
“Miss Fortune” is very similar to the Velvet Underground’:
“The Murder Mystery”, sonically and also in the way that the
song is achieved. But then they were clearly so in love with al
things Warhol that their 1972 collaboration was with Tony Con
rad. In the very early ’60s, Conrad had been John Cale’s cohor
in the Lamonte Young New York ensemble, The Dream Syndi
cate. They played epic unchanging chamber dirges with intel
lectual perfection combined with lots of pre-Hippy Fuckoff
Outside the Dream Syndicate was a heavenly marriage. The LP
was recorded at Wumme, now a successful recording studio in
its own right, in October 1972, and released on Virgin’s budge
price Caroline label for £1.49 in early ’73. This long unchangin:
mantra was epic, dignified and strung out. Like the huge gre
and white photo of him on the LP jacket, Tony Conrad was ;
ghost upon his own record. His violin hung like a spectre ove:
the whole album, but never did it even dip or sway. Much more
minimal even than John Cale, here was a musician with a ques
from the beyond.

It was ironic, then, that the next Faust LP, The Faust Tape>
was one whole pound cheaper than the collaboration with Cor
rad, sold 10 times more than all their other records, and wa
their best album - an unconditional stone-classic! But Virgi'
Records had licensed the LP from Uwe Nettlebeck, as part d
the new recording deal now that the Polydor contract had nr
out. Steve Lewis at Virgin had worked out that they could sel
The Faust Tapes for 49p, and not lose money. It would contin¬
ue the heavy Faust trip in fine style, whilst simultaneous!;
boosting the credentials of the very young record compam
With a Bridgit Riley op-art painting on one side, and a bunch d
reviews picked by Uwe Nettlebeck on the other, The Faun
Tapes was an overnight phenomenon. Everybody bought it
Not everybody loved it. When a record is so cheap, it’s some¬
times hard to see the real value. But I dug it to death. It was then
best by far.

Not only because of the songs, or even the editing (which is
fee ":nest in rock’n’roll - heavily influenced by, but streets
AeaJ of, Zappa’s hung-up eavesdropping little muse), but
fceca-.se a true rock’n’roll Moment was Created, and the music
■tO -itterly cuts it 22 years later. Faust were really out and about
fc* n ... . The music press was full of them and, in March 1973,
N'ettlebeck explained the basic Faust intentions to the
fcV E. thus:

“Thev’re not professional in that sense... We’ve always
Kfed the idea of releasing records which lacked conventional
~ in terms of production... the music should sound like

I as if recorded by someone who passed a group
g or jamming and then cut the recorded material wild-
;r.”

settlebeck is clearly over-stating his case here, but
an never have foreseen explaining the workings of
^arre Musical-unit to the popular press. Now was the
“ for Faust, and they decided at last to tour Britain...

5t Tour

1st of Faust-mouzik time ticks like a bomb."

From Faust's free 1973 Tour-handout.

:o explain the excitement that the Faust tour brought.
'73, nobody had a clue who they were, or even if they
all. The name Uwe Nettlebeck was constantly heard,
urs in the press abounded. The tour took on a sort of
und event of the year’ vibe and even some of my
mates came to Birmingham Town Hall to see them,
er were free Faust manifestos handed to everyone,
Henry Cow posters. It was ironic, but perfect really,
had chosen such a lame bunch as Henry Cow to sup-
• played their wacky Cambridge University Degree
*'avsoons and time-changes galore, and the guitarist
de of the stage and put headphones on, and pretend-
> the band in a jolly way. Ho-hum...
e- :t was all change as the road drills and hand-paint-
p .mo came on stage. And the two pinball-machines,

one on each side of the stage, facing outwards and connected to
synthesizers. And the lights were all intense white, with
extremely directional strobes that lit up the high high ceiling of
the Town Hall. It was 1973, and musicians usually soloed and
looked to the audience for applause, and great ugly guys nanced
around in cheese-cloth singing about fucking nothing at all.
And then Faust walked on - longhairs without flares, wearing
those pale European straight-legs you’d see on hip German stu¬
dents over here in the early ’70s. I couldn’t believe it - they
opened with “It’s a Rainy Day (Sunshine Girl)”. One played the
drums, one played the piano and sung, one played acoustic gui¬
tar and sung, and the two others played pinball machines that
triggered synthesizers - backs to each other on either side of the
stage, as strobes caught the strings of the finest rhythm guitarist
since Lou Reed. It was epic, it was brilliant, it had attitude
enough to raze cities and it ruined every show I went to for at
least two years after. At times they caught snatches of their
songs and flung them about a bit, but they had concrete on stage
and big road drills and their very Stooges’ Ur-punk presence
awed me and shocked me.

Faust IV and the End of the Line

After that, Faust were inevitably in a comer. They had become
a part of mid-teenage British culture and The Faust Tapes was
subjected to Monty Python-like rituals in the schoolyard, to see
how much of it we knew and sort out the real Heads. When
Faust IV came out it was an enormous letdown. I can’t think of
anyone who bought it. The packaging was weak. The songs had
real riffs, and there was a reggae song on it! That song, “The
Sad Skinhead” is now one of their best, but I couldn’t see it at
the time. And neither could anyone else. Faust IV, certainly as
great as all but The Faust Tapes , was given the thumbs down. In
truth, “Krautrock”, the classic 12-minute epic that opened the
album, is really just a continuation of their whole trip. They fol¬
lowed it with amazing songs; “Jennifer” and “Giggy Smile” are
Krautrock classics. But I suppose Faust IV didn’t have the
innate sense of Moment that all their previous events/releases
had. With hindsight, the sleeve was vastly inferior to all the oth- [

at d maybe they should have stayed in Wumme instead of
ling it in the Manor, in Oxfordshire. But hindsight does
any good, and when Faust 5 was rejected by Virgin,
-. Nettlebeck lost interest and Faust disappeared just as mys-
sly as they had first arrived.

B at the story did not end there. Faust were guaranteed
diate legend status for what they had achieved and, like
and Can, were highly inspirational to the soon-coming
sh punk-scene. New albums of old songs have surfaced
time to time, Munic & Elsewhere , The Last LP , and 71
te of Faust all contain unreleased songs in various
durations. But, greater than all their records, Faust tell of
~.:roic time when reaching for the stars did not have to
: getting the stars in order to be successful.

CHAPTER 4

Tangerine Dream

From Electronic Meditation to Atem

"...dedicated to all people who feel obliged to space."

T. Dream note from Alpha Centauri 197'

The Making of Electronic Meditation

In October 1969, three intensely powerful and Visionary exper¬
imental musicians entered the Mixed Media Studio, in West
Berlin, a walled city surrounded by miles of grey Eastern Euro¬
pean nothingness and only connected to the outside Western
world by a 96 mile ‘corridor’. Using an un-standard musical
configuration of lead guitarist/organist, a cellist who doubled
on violin and 2nd guitar, plus the fittest drummer in music, Tan¬
gerine Dream there recorded an album of such intense freedom
and Vision as was seldom recorded in the Western world. Elec¬
tronic Meditation is an album of undeniable genius, born of the
frustrations of one who has had visions of truth, and needs to
project them to others Right Now! The three Visionaries* * were

* I do not use the term Visionary lightly. Indeed, the Tangerine Dream line-up for
ELECTRONIC MEDITATION is, in Krautrock terms, a little like having Syd Barrett
Robert Wyatt & Eddie Phillips all in the same group. And never have the musician ;
ALL continued in music at a pace as crazily achieving as Froese, Schultze &
Schnitzler. Edgar Froese’s T. Dream catalogue is enormous, whilst Klaus Schultze has
release way over 50 LPs since this first LP. Unbelievably, Schnitzler surpasses ever,
this incredible output - one year in the late ’80s he produced 14 solo LPs and two col¬
laborations. Like them all or not, this compulsion to produce & produce is quite awe
inspiring.

hultze, Edgar Froese & Conrad Schnitzler, all formi-
heir own unorthodox musical fields, but brought here
> by Edgar Froese’s desperate need to capture at
semblance of the Tangerine Dream live musical
Once a player of Top 40 music but now a re-formed
.. with a quest, Froese had led T. Dream since the end
n at least three other line-ups and he was, by now, des-
r lo ~.ake a brand new musical statement. And when the
tisicians entered Mixed Media Studio (actually just a
k) r space owned by local Heads), they put together an
ental tape that transcended all those of their contempo-
In different musical configurations, a bizarre nether-
c ncoction of magic and ritual was quickly built, using
mques that Froese, Schultze & Schnitzler had learned
- : long educations in Experimental Music. They put a
.ike on to a cash register, smashed glasses, and used
: hellish edits as Luddite as the early Amon Diiiil record-
► Al . mes during the recording, the musical truth of these
als dwelt in a low low Earthbound Realm, grubbing
n their primeval cello and percussion swamps, whilst
the marshlands floated the low-church ugly-duckling
* Hdgar Froese’s Swan Rising. But more than all this, at
n Electronic Meditation , T, Dream took off into outer-
and. And on the guitar/drums Burn-outs of both “Cold
and “Journey Through A Burning Brain”, Tangerine
s .zzled with a ferocity of True Renaissance Man. Klaus
ze‘s drumming was like a religion-fuelled feedback-
army of Ottoman Mo Tuckers beating at the Gates of
It was the sound of Germany’s entire collective psyche
up on its hindlegs and screaming, “To The
an!!!” With Klaus Schultze’s drums liberated from the
"tent bass guitar, a free-rock was created with its feet in
musical camps at the same time. It was a musical form
' .ted youth’s Rock’n’roll sounds with the Classical, and
r. ditional with the most extreme forms of novelty. And the
• was as timeless as is nearly all the very greatest art...

Edgar Froese Meets Salvador Dali - Northern Spain
1965

But how had Tangerine Dream come to this musical place? 1
understand this, we must first return to 1965 when Edgar Froe*
was lead guitarist in a quite standard beat group called The One

“The first time I heard the Rolling Stones was in the middl
of a rehearsal with a rock’n’roll group (The Ones.) I was first c
all attracted by their looks. Their faces were absolutely dam
aged. They were the absolute opposite of The Beatles.”

The success of The Stones was most inspiring of all to th
sullen-looking and unglamorous Froese. He had turned to th
guitar only after discovering that he could not sing as he saw th
new Pop Culture embracing all kinds of very different types c
Beauty in art. Later the same year, The Ones travelled to Non
Eastern Spain to play a summer season in the Catalonian tow
of Cadaques, an artistic and exclusive seaside resort 30 mile
from Barcelona. Here Edgar Froese’s life and its meaning wer
entirely changed by a chance meeting of some clarity with Sal
vador Dali. The Ones played a show at Dali’s villa and nothin
for Froese was ever the same again:

“This was the biggest change I ever had in music. By seein
the way he was talking and thinking, I found that everythin
was possible. I thought that I would do the same thing as he di<
in painting, in music.”

Edgar Froese had come to rock’n’roll through the now stan
dard Art School route. Like Salvador Dali, his schooling had al
been in sculpture and painting. Now, Froese was euphoric an<
saw countless strands reaching out into the future - ways i
which he could paint, record, write, tour... all these thing
inside a fabulous new kind of art package. With his psychi-
hackles up, Froese took The Ones back to West Berlin, when
he submerged himself and his group in the work of the neM
Experimental Composers.

Berlin was at the centre of this radical discovery and had, fo
many years, been the home of people who cut up tapes, rar
music backwards, placed speaker systems in strange configura
tions, and tried to weird their audiences out in each and ever>
way. Seminars by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Italy’s Lucian
Berio even questioned what music was. John Cage arrivec

York, where he had been creating 24-hour piano
Another American, Morton Subotnick, advocated
us possibilities of the brand new Bucla synthesizer.
b> the lateral-thinking technical Visionary Don
k in> new instrument had no keyboard at all, but was con-
I b> - set of push pads which created a chain of different
musical ‘happenings’. Other foreign composers like
Babbit, Xenakis and Toshi Ichyanagi gave seminars,
rub of the West German Experimental scene orbited
. he audio-workshops of Roland Kayn, Thomas Kessler
hausen himself.

rtx ..gh Froese immersed himself in the new, he was still
: • eteran not completely in synch with the revolutionary
t of young Berlin - not to mention the many new and
idealists, much younger than Froese, who were
l by the beat music of the early and mid-’60s.
to change things too much, Edgar Froese dragged
nes back to Cadaques for one final show at Salvador
i \ la. The French film producer J.C. Avery was at the
rr -sing a film about Dali’s famous Christ Statue and he
The Ones to record the film’s soundtrack. But it was a
elation. The Ones struggled into the early months of
'educed to playing “In the Midnight Hour” three times a
: at Johnny Halliday’s club in Paris. As they became poor-
poorer, all five of them slept in one room and ate the
est horsemeat, which they cooked on an open fire along
B is de Boulogne. And all the beautiful young people
ng to Paris only reminded the depressed Froese of his lost
He finally split The Ones, packed up his things and
ed to Berlin.

Live '68 - Tangerine Dream & Psy-Free at the Zodiac
Club

"The biggest shock I ever got as a guitarist was to listen to Jimi
Hendrix ."

Edgar Froese, 1976

The Berlin Underground had by now sucked up and assimilat¬
ed the music of The Grateful Dead, The Mothers, The Fugs.
The Velvet Underground and The Doors. Still bemoaning his
lack of a singing voice and in love with “the special modulation
in Morrison’s voice,” Edgar Froese attempted to re-arrange
instrumental versions of Doors’ songs(!) for his new free-rock
quartet Tangerine Dream. A Berlin drummer called Lanse Hap-
shash contacted Froese who invited Hapsash to join Tangerine
Dream on the hipness of his name alone. The source of that
name was a British free-rock freakout LP Hapshash & the
Coloured Coat *, which had been released just that summer to
enormous acclaim from the British, U.S. and German under¬
ground. Featuring side-long one-chord psychedelic grooves
and chants, it was far more extreme than any of the American
music thus far released - American record companies so far
keeping such a tight rein of discipline over their supposed psy¬
chedelic groups that the first Grateful Dead LP made them
sound like a frisky country band.

Throughout the autumn of 1967, Froese and Hapshash
rehearsed with Kurt Kerkenberg on bass and Volker Hombach
on flute and violin. And by January 1968, T. Dream played their
first show at Berlin Technical University amidst an orgy of
riots, free-thought and anarchy. This led to a huge Berlin cult
following, as T. Dream took on an enormous residency at the
Zodiac Club, playing free-form freakout music to Berliners for
5 or 6 hours per night. This new Berlin idealism totally rejected

* Though central to the formative moments of recorded Free-form psychedelic rock,
HAPSHASH & THE COLOURED COAT as a statement is not one which sustains its
muse into the ’90s. Like Klaus Schultze’s CYBORG, it created a genre which quickly
turned around and kicked its creator’s dick into the dirt. HAPSHASH & THE
COLOURED COAT is now available on CD. For comparisons with all Amon Diiiil l
recordings, search out “A Mind Blown Is A Mind Shown” and “The New Messiah
Coming 1985”.

~ ^eap Carnaby St. capitalism on which much of the Ameri-
md British scenes thrived, and musicians were happy to
: n a pittance so long as they could play without the police
i iheir backs.

But the schedule and policing of such events was punishing
musicians left constantly, through lack of recording deals
r n mey. Gradually, people began to leave. Lanse Hapshash
■ replaced by a Swedish jazz drummer called Sven Johann-
whilst Volker Hombach left to become a cameraman for
: German film director Jurgen Fassbinder. A new Dutch bass
i • er. a Liverpool drummer called Paul, a small commission
• - TV soundtrack, and Edgar Froese’s new vision ground to
t His head was caned, brutalised and battered. Where were
rrdividuals that could sustain the intensity of the Trip he
n his Burning and Dali-magnified Brain?

ay. It's Got No Commercial Chance But Well Take

> in West Berlin lived the ultra-left wing psychedelic freak-
rio called Psy-Free. They were about three to four years
~.ger than Edgar Froese, and had that amazing free-form
'mer called Klaus Schultze in their organ/guitar/drums
e-up. Then, soon after the break-up of the second version of
tangerine Dream, Psy-Free split right out of the blue. Edgar
F* -ese asked Klaus Schultze to play drums in a new Tangerine
Dream. An undergraduate at the Technical University of
Berlin, majoring in psychology and experimental composition,
,K aus Schultze, was a student of Thomas Kessler. Since 1968,
fc. nad been making experimental tapes and had insight into the
seemingly impenetrable electronic music from his work at
Kessler’s studio. Edgar Froese had also attended many of
llessler’s lectures and felt compelled to continue with an
.-orthodox instrumentation. He asked Conrad Schnitzler, a
V-ture student several years older than himself, to complete
fr e line-up. Once called the “untameable experimentalist” by
rr ^sicologist A. Freeman, Schnitzler proved to be the bizarre
ind atonal Sonic-anchor on which Edgar Froese & Klaus
Irtiultze would be able to hang their unearthly Pre-verbal

muse. The results were wild to say the very least. Electronic
Meditation is ancient, modern and futuristic all at once, though
it is really neither electronic nor meditative. Though played by
electric and acoustic instruments. Electronic Meditation's
unorthodoxy makes it no more technologically equipped than a
man in a dungeon playing music with his bare hands and feet.
It’s highly likely that the use of the word ‘Electronic’ in the LP
title was more for symbolic reasons, part of Tangerine Dream’s
collective attitude towards experimental music, and Edgar
Froese’s desire to be Seen to have Embraced this culture. And
more than embrace it, with Schultze and Schnitzler he had tran¬
scended it. When the head of Ohr Records Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser
heard Electronic Meditation , he said:

“Okay, it’s got no commercial chance but we’ll take you/'

Destruction, Resurrection & Alpha Centauri

R-U Kaiser had already written about T. Dream in his 1969
rock’n’roll book Das Buck Der Neuen Pop Music. He was a
huge fan of the group and was determined to have as much
input as possible. It’s difficult to truly understand Edgar
Froese’s headspace at this time. He was constantly asking
extreme individuals into T. Dream, then freaking out when they
acted like themselves. As early as October ’69, Froese had
freaked out at the Essen Pop & Blues Festival, because Klaus
Schultze was using “strange organ tapes” on stage! Maybe it
was just a control trip he was on. Whatever, Schultze left soon
after Electronic Mediation's release, joining another raw and
shatteringly cosmic group - Ash Ra Tempel. But T. Dream had
found a fan in the young jazz drummer, Christophe Franke.
From one of the earliest and most inspiring of all the early Ger¬
man free-rock groups, Agitation Free, Franke had been
intrigued by the visual experiments that accompanied T.
Dream’s performances. He quickly integrated into the group
and, for a while, Froese, Schnitzler & Franke recorded music
for TV and played at the Vienna Arts Lab. Then Conrad Schnit¬
zler left. With the arrival of Chris Franke, the musical scales
had tipped too far away for Schnitzler, who left to form a j

• 'rimless ultra-experimental group called Kluster*. With
r^ure from R-U Kaiser, Edgar Froese asked the young
tanist Steve Schroyder to join T. Dream and Rolf-Ulrich
i ser booked the group into Dieter Dierks’ studio at S tom-
rim, near Cologne.

Ipha Centauri was the name of the second LP and it was
Ft as cosmically garage and pagan as Electronic Meditation.

the 13-minute epic, “Fly & Collision of Comas Sola”, the
r z begins with a screeching stellar synthesizer that wheels
the sky before slipping into an unholy union of beautiful
> flute, light and elfin, against a grey low-church chord
pn that is unashamedly shackled to the earth. As the flute
i. > on a more and more atmospheric vitality, so the organ
Domes intrusive and stubborn, cantankerously shifting from
m : to major chords at will. And then it all takes off. Huge

* - • uned shaking synthesizers threaten to obliterate the whole
Ki until, Phoenix-like and utterly at odds with everything
le. .ireat de-tuned kettledrums rise out of the mix to jam with
tc^zy beautiful flute. The flute picks up, dances even crazier
id -before and lifts the drums to a new plateau until the drum-
cr uddenly blasts into a brand new space and... explodes
nr J his drumkit in a way unlike all other rock’n’roll, yet
Kannily like the inspirational freakbeats of Klaus Schultze on
br ironic Meditation. Chris Franke had obviously felt the
Aliening psychic storm that Klaus Schultze had left on the
K LP. And it was with awe-inspiring thoroughness that he
^..ed Schultze’s performance on Alpha Centauri. Again,
r l- orthodox instrumentation had conjured a magic totally
!>v - d anything heard before. But this time, Tangerine Dream
rt ruck a deep chord in its German audience, and Alpha
mauri sold an unprecedented 20,000 copies, pushing the

mORTANT CONRAD SCHNITZLER NOTE: Kluster was formed by Conrad
■dfr Dieter Moebius & Hans-Joachim Roedelius to create vast weather-like
■ft —usic. In early 1971, they recorded the album ZWEIOSTEREI, a vast thing
of two 20-minute pieces. Both tracks “Electronic Music Und Text” and
kftonir Music (Kluster 4)” bear far more resemblance to ELECTRONIC MEDI-
PPV ihan to the later Schnitzler-less group who changed their name to Cluster.
BA* duo’s first & massive CLUSTER LP on the Phillips label lacks that spine-
« ello that coursed through the Kluster recordings and irrigated the very soul
to£C'RONIC MEDITATION.

group and Kosmische music into a far greater sphere of influ¬
ence than had before been considered possible.

With great expectations from the German underground, the
1972 follow-up was Zeit, a huge sprawling double-album. Zeit
means ‘time’ and that is precisely what this unexpected 80
minute monster was missing. I have listened to Zeit well over a
thousand times, and still it hangs outside any formal time-zone.
Gone was the confrontation of the previous LPs, replaced b>
epic rhythmless motionless ambient tracts of deep space. Here,
the Orb is the fastest of speed metal, I shit you not. Four pieces,
all around 20 minutes long, fused together to create a Krautrock
equivalent of the films 2001 or Dark Star. Again, the epic
opaque titles served only to enforce the idea that all T. Dream
pieces were performed on some unearthly Pacific atoll, sur¬
rounded not by the ocean, but by the stars. Before the Zeit
recording sessions, Edgar Froese had replaced Steve Schroyder
with Hanspeter Baumann, accusing Schroyder of “freaking
totally out.” Again, Froese may have been merely powertrip¬
ping. For when the amazing and free-form Ash Ra Tempel, also
an Ohr Records band, welcomed Steve Schroyder with open
arms, Froese was moved to invite the young organist back to
play as a guest on the Zeit sessions.

Pete Baumann, a great-looking rock organist from a group
called The Ants, was an altogether more Traditionally capable
musician than had previously inhabited T. Dream. By the
recording of Zeit , he was not fully integrated into the group, and
a hole appeared in the music which proved to be very positive.
The spaces stretched out into huge silencescapes, and the mag¬
nificent drumming of older times was dismissed to some distant
horizon. Popol Vuh’s Moog mantra, Affenstunde, had enchant¬
ed Edgar Froese who invited Popol Vuh’s leader, Florian
Fricke, to play his outrageously fabulous and expensive big
Moog on Zeif s daunting opening track, “The Birth of Liquid
Plejades”. Four deep sonorous and fractious cellos led by
Jochen Von Grumbcow, of the German Medieval folk-group
Holderlin, held sway as Fricke’s unutterably beautiful phased
woman-tone cuts through the melancholy. With Kosmische
music a widely discussed phenomenon throughout the West
German scene, Zeit was only the second electronic example to

group and Kosmische music into a far greater sphere of influ¬
ence than had before been considered possible.

ed. It must, then, have infuriated Edgar Froese that his
- partner, Klaus Schultze, had, one full month before Zeit ,
the modern epic Irrlicht. With hindsight, the two
■ are extremely different - Irrlicht is far more cacopho-
ts 'tring arrangements far headier, and the space it occu-
niore action-packed than Zeit. But in the cold moment
e\ement, the two records were constantly compared
I each other.

‘ U Itima Thule" 45 & Atem

'.une time as Zeit , Tangerine Dream recorded an outra-

* <Borage-Prog. single called “Ultima Thule (Teils 1 & 2)”.
Baumann’s rock attitude reared up on Side 1, which is a
n onolithic slab of Barrett Floydian instrumental mania.

\ track kicks off with a hilarious madly strummed bar-chord

* r >m Froese, which loses its way a little before picking up
the RSJ Slab-funk riff which Pete Baumann’s keyboards
:-ate. “Teil 2” was an entirely different piece, less punky,

:ke the soundtrack to some famous Ancient Egyptian

in the summer of 1972, Tangerine Dream played at the
ch Festival, their last show with a conventional organ/
/guitar line-up. The show was recorded for a BASF live
a. the band contributing a track called “Oscillator Planet
c err. This and the recording of “Ultima Thule” had quick¬
ie grated Pete Baumann into T. Dream, who suddenly
l themselves in their stride and produced the mighty epic
is Atem. Arguments about the next direction the group
J take were caused by Ohr boss R-U Kaiser. Rolf-Ulrich
• on a Vision-trip similar in power to Edgar Froese and the
*o men did not see eye-to-eye. Kaiser’s new Cosmic
".ers/Kosmische Musik label was doing extremely well
: re desperately wanted Tangerine Dream to jump ship from
Ohr to the hip new label.

Bat Froese would not be swayed and his Vision remained
ct. The title track of Atem, over 20 minutes long, is big like
“T ama Thule (Teil 2)” and it is quite clear that T. Dream were
2 spi red to new heights by the recording of their one 45. The

title-track of Atem is big like the driest desert. It opens like Side
2 of Joy Division’s Closer , mellotron fanfares salute Atlantis as
it slips into the ocean, then back to those beautiful drums so
absent from Zeit. This all gives way to a long long Zeit -like
time-suspension section, rhythmless but randomly pulsating.
The last track on the LP, a short piece called “Wahn”, is the fur¬
thest out there. T. Dream get all feral and start barking and
chimping it up - three shaman synthesists that have finally
betrayed their instruments to dance together in a circle and har¬
monise only through each others’ breathing. It is a beautiful,
funny and moving sound, for it shows masters of Experimental
Music reaching their Muse in any way that they can.

Phaedra Goes International

In Britain, John Peel made Atem his Import LP of the Year and
Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser secured the album’s release on Polydor.
Tangerine Dream were so big now that most Germans thought
they must be British. But Edgar Froese was furious to discover
a Kosmische Musik logo on all the Polydor copies of Atem. He
furry-freaked at R-U Kaiser for the last time and successfully
got out of the Ohr Records contract. The synchronicity was per¬
fect. With such enormous interest in Britain, Tangerine Dream
were signed to the brand new and (then) ultra-hip Virgin
Records. The John Peel Show and the constant British press
had prepared the way for T. Dream’s first simultaneous Ger¬
man/British release and Phaedra was a Top 10 album in
Britain. It was a good, even occasionally exhilarating piece of
sequenced pulsing easy-listening trip-out music, and would
soon become a staple diet of the early ’70s British student. But
the essential moment of their early Muse was clearly gone, as if
evaporated in an instant. Perhaps it was the combination of
changes which precipitated Tangerine Dream’s sudden shift of
direction. From their constant sessions at Dieter Dierks’ studio,
the group was suddenly recording in Virgin’s Manor in Oxford¬
shire. At the same time that the conventional and often a-rhyth-
mically-used percussion instruments were finally ditched, a
large Virgin advance enabled Froese, Franke & Baumann to
buy banks & banks of sequential whatsoevers whenever they

*.«. need it. It was late 1973 and 1967 felt a long time ago to
\gi: Froese. Perhaps it was time to move on. The days of con-
i-mikes on cash registers were obviously over.

T [)ream quickly sussed that this was their way to cosmic
id m. There was certainly no sell-out but, almost overnight,
m\ .vent the True experiment. Away went the broken busted
pt'". And gone forever was the snarling-in-the-dust intensi¬
on :nose first four classic LPs, replaced, instead, by short 33
bl te LPs of programmed pre-New age sequenced automaton
Kf esizer music. Yes, without knowing their older siblings, T.
inn's later 1970s albums Phaedra , Rubicon , even Stratos-
tr are quite a good listen in the cold light of the ’90s. But at
r time, they seemed an unforgivable tragedy after that blazing
. r LP birth and gestation.

CHAPTER 5

Neu!

From Kraftwerk to La Dusseldorf via Cluster &
Harmonia...

An attempted Brief Un-ravelment of Neu!

"We make no premature fixing of style, as we are very dependent
on situations and circumstances ."

Klaus Dinger & Michael Rother, 197'

Neu! with Florian (Kraftwerk without Ralf)

Neu! was born in a royal shitstorm, live on German TV, on a
bizarre night in August 1971. And in true keeping with thei:
convoluted history soon to come, that incredible 11 minute pei
formance on Beatclub, including delicate and chillingly beat
tiful snatches of their forthcoming classics “Im Gluck” an.
“Weissensee”, was not even played under the banner of Neu
but of Kraftwerk. That truly incredible Klang they calle^
“Truckstop Gondolero” was played by a Neu! phoenix risin r
out of the Kraftwerk funeral pyre.

Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider were, at that time, pio¬
neers of the very fiercest sounding experimental music. Arden:
followers of Karlheinz Stockhausen, they had begun life afl
leaders of Organisation, a five piece experimental group which
had recorded the Out-there Noise-rock LP for RCA calle.
Tonefloat. Re-cast and re-named as the ultra-Germa*
Kraftwerk, Hutter & Schneider had thus far recorded two LFs|

xK t rk and Kraftwerk 2, which were barely less un-hinged
I thj:r first record. The same lopsided skanks prevailed and
*ea: was never really less than the hard flamming Crunch of
qfmental musicians attempting the most basic rock’n’roll,
sat now Kraftwerk were breaking, or trying to break, into a
i thing and it was taking a long while. Temporarily reduced
» luo. Ralf Hutter & Florian Schneider asked Michael
her (pronounced ‘rota’) to play guitar and Klaus Dinger to
'i for them. Rother & Dinger were good friends and
rmely confident musicians, and they very quickly carved a
i * ithin Kraftwerk that was both Impressionist & Medita-
il one moment, and Expressionist & Ur-punk the next -

- : the sound in a direction that neither Ralf Hutter nor Flo-
'jhneider had intended. But the live TV appearance on

. club was already booked, and a frantic Ralf Hutter freaked
and left the group. ‘Kraftwerk without Ralf’ played Beat-

■ - midst huge orange German traffic cones, though it would

■ re correct to call the group ‘Neu! with Florian’. “Truck-
: Gondolero” encapsulates the entire Neu! career in its 11
i ~;es length. This curiously drawn time-piece swerved from
"ee-form bass-less noise-rock Neu! would become so well

- n for, to the tiny eked-out wa-guitar swamp they inhabit¬
ing in the classic motorik Hallogallo- style they always

md so hard to avoid. It was a stupendous piece of music that
c ervone, including the musicians, gasping.

& The Rise of Neu!

£ sc Neu! was born - the epitome of Krautrock. Neu! (pro-
^ced ‘Noy’) means ‘new’ and this group was just that.

Kraftwerk re-formed as the remedial synthesizer duo
I aid record the cult LP Ralf & Florian , Klaus Dinger &
pael Rother borrowed enough money to buy them four
to at Windrose Studios, in Hamburg, with the inspirational
Ifccer Conrad Plank, whom they already knew through
Berk. The recordings created a mightily successful first
dar mtshone everything around it. Neu\ was a mini-mas-
toc- and quite a move on from the duo’s Kraftwerk roots,
r *>-nd that replaced the hectic stop/start of the Kraftwerk

trip was an ambient bassless White-light Pop-rock mantra th.
steadied itself directly between the two extremes of Bu
blegum music and the extreme German experimental musi
Neu\ was the product of two young Master-magicians who h
so grabbed hold of the creative ‘moment’ in the studio as to cr<
ate a true jewel of an LR The recording’s success was heigh:
ened by Dinger & Rother’s natural inclination to introdui
intriguing and beautiful sounds alongside the clanking an*
Cut-up prevalent in so much contemporary experimen
music. Both had a flair for melody that was straight out of Di
neyland, and no hang-ups at all about sounding pretty as well
fierce. Neu! was quickly signed to Bruno Wendel & Gunt<
Korber’s new Brain label, whereupon the duo designed the
selves a record-sleeve of Washing Powder attend on-grabbim
simplicity. On an all white gloss 12"xl2" background, the onh
other presence was the word “Neu!” shouting enormous am
red.

The album was an instant hit and it seemed that everybody
found out about them right from the beginning. I bought thi
first album when it was released in Britain by UA in 1972. Th<
10 minute E major guitar mantra “Hallogallo” which openei
the first LP was a radio hit in 1972. Its mid-tempo unchangin:
stoner vibe penetrated all of Britain via John Peel who dug it t<
death. As I wrote earlier, Neu! was the epitome of Krautrock.|
and they have defined it more clearly and fundamentally than
any other group. Their LP had an even more vivid jacket in
Britain and it screamed off the record shop shelves, its bright
dayglo pink sleeve with Neu ! in white and underlined like a|
Daz container. At a time of Roger Dean’s Yes sleeves and their)
ilk cluttered full of Space junk, mythical animals and members
of ugly groups cast as supermen in some prehistoric void, Neu!
artwork was speedfreak clean. And they clung on to that annoy¬
ing Pop-art exclamation mark at the end of their name at all
costs.

Neu 2 & The Death of Neu!

with another ex-Kraftwerker, Eberhard Krahnemann, on bass

p *as too early and not right. Dinger & Rother were under
mm p'essure to get bigger after the unexpected success of the
HP. so Neu! recorded their first single for Brain, the double-
■pt ~Neuschnee”/“Super”. “Neuschnee” is a fairly standard
Mtr> pretty mid-tempo Neu! instrumental groove. “Super”
M :\tremely buzzsaw-punky bassless hoot’n’holler dance
Ml hich DAF copped completely for their classic “Der
ni”, in 1981. But the single was not a big hit. Andrew
brier at UA was having big success in Britain with Amon
■ . 1 1 and Can, and German music, the weirder and more Ger-
riri tne better, was suddenly being given lots of space in the
iris. The success of the first album began to weigh heavily on
bpair.

Bow ing to outside pressure, Neu! went straight back into the
o and began to record Neu 2. They worked hard on the
^ -*ric “Fur Immer”, a greener richer 11-minute “Hallogallo”,
id were almost done recording Side 1 when they were told
:heir recording budget was screwed and they were almost

- >f money. Furious and distraught and in a total mess, they
: _*ed out at the size of their problem. Then, in a moment of
~ stic vision cut with dubious clarity, one of them (and F11 bet

- as Klaus Dinger) suggested making Side 2 a pop-art cut-up
atement, using their single tracks “Neuschnee” and “Super”

ne basis. As these two very cool songs combined only added
•T :o seven minutes, drastic action was needed. So they played
"N euschnee” at 78 rpm and recorded some of that. And then
rifcy played some of “Super” at 78 and 16 and recorded some of
Bat. They even recorded “Neuschnee” with Klaus Dinger
rutting his fingers on the machine to slow it down.

And so the LP became a sort of weird rip-off Krautrock stan¬
dard. It’s hard to feel spiritually satisfied by Neu 2 but it is truly
r re tty fucking good. However, Michael Rother was totally
'eaked by the whole experience, causing Neu! to split up. Four
•nonths after the split, he was in the studio with a brand new
"'and called Harmonia, making some of the greatest music
: his career and of the whole Krautrock trip. Musik Von
Harmonia was co-written and produced by Michael Rother &
Cluster...

Enter Cluster - Moebius, Roedelius & Musik Von
Harmonia

Having begun their career with one similarly poetically named
duo, Hutter & Schneider, it seems only artistically correct for
Neu! that there next should have been contact with the other
great poetically named duo, Moebius & Roedelius, better
known as Cluster. And Cluster, who also recorded for Brain
Records, were looking for an entire change of direction. They
had not released a record for almost two years and that last LP
Cluster II was in a style that now belonged to a different age.

But the relationship between Dieter Moebius & Hans-
Joachim Roedelius was a strong one. As a duo also, Cluster had
successfully avoided friction between each other thus far by
working with other musicians. They had started out as the trio
Kluster with the arch-experimentalist Connie Schnitzler,
releasing epic and spacey records that sounded unearthly and
hollow but always listenable. Schnitzler’s influence was
extreme, though, and his compulsive and phenomenal output
of work was too wild for Moebius & Roedelius. When Schnit¬
zler left to pursue what would become an outrageous solo
career, they continued as a duo, releasing the vast weather bal¬
loon of sound called Cluster on Phillips Records. It was soon
after this point that they signed with the much hipper Brain
label. For Cluster II, Conrad Plank was placed in the Schnitzler
role and received full writing and production credits for it all.
But then came the long lay-off and the need for change. Cluster
and Neu! shared record companies and the same co-produc¬
er/engineer, so when the Neu! split occurred, Michael Rother
looked for temporary asylum in the arms of Cluster.

The trio of Rother, Moebius & Roedelius created a wonder¬
ful sound and the recording sessions were astonishing - and so
trippily beautiful that the trio felt compelled to call themselves
Harmonia. Each piece was a short vignette of sound which
faded in, filled the room with its unearthly beauty, then left just
as quickly. The driving force musically was Michael Rother,
who invested every moment with the candy melody and sim¬
plicity of guitar licks that had made all Neu! songs so austere
and Joe Meek-ian. Yet Moebius & Roedelius also showed enor-

us freedom as artists, particularly in their sheer bravery of
_ndoning the vast Aircraft-hangar structures of their recent
$ • for a who)e new thing (see Review 30 of Top 50 section.)
c \tusik Von Harmonia LP sleeve was a retarded super-real-
~aiming of a towering blue ammonia bottle, with artlessly
,;ed announcements proclaiming: “Mit; m.rother (Neu!),

.>ebius (Cluster), j.roedelius (Cluster)” - they were a true
-utrock supergroup.

Whilst all this went on, Klaus Dinger had been working qui-
on his proto-punk band La Dusseldorf with his brother
>mas and Hans Lampe, Conny Plank’s tape-op from all the
u sessions. As ever unorthodox, Klaus Dinger’s La Dussel-
: was going to be another bass-less tom-tom heavy Kraut-
ik controlled freakout. And the strange Glam Dinger image
> ;urned full blast on to his younger cohorts, as Klaus pre-
red for a Trip that was entirely integrated. Soon, everything
s ready...

hj 75 & The Return of Neu!

.Klaus Dinger met Michael Rother. They talked about the
\ everything had gone wrong and felt as though it had all
thrown away stupidly. In one refreshing and, as usual,
v inspiring act, Neu! was reborn for a farewell pre-La Dus-
dorf LP. The album was called Neu 75 and it was a classic.
< a great album like the Harmonia, Cluster or even other
j albums were, but a classic. A future-shaping moment of
•sous vision. Punk as eating the snot off your mates face,
'.tual as dawn on any clear day. It was a moving fucking
ne-out, geddit?

Neu 75 came together at Conny Plank’s studio in December
"4. The album was to be divided in half, a trippy spiritual
:c followed by a long minimalist Pagan wig-out. Side 1
onged to Michael Rother, its three long pieces opening with
; as elegant as'Harmonia, but driven by that unmistakable
« bass-less Dinger drumming, low down in the mix and med-
tional in effect. Thereafter followed two of Neu!’s most
_ jtiful suspended seascapes, “Seeland” and “Leb Wohl”. It
is as if the first Neu! LP had returned from a long heavy jour-

ney, and was much changed and grown introverted by the expt
rience. It was beautiful dewy-eyed music; backward looking
to childhood, and to the safety of not knowing the world.. .The:
Zippeeeeee! In comes Dinger and his Dusseldorf cronies t:
kick your head off on Side 2 with music that was surely th;
most radical version of rock’n’roll since Eddie Cochran. Witi
the music pivoting entirely around the double-drumming an.
the School- playground Boy-chants, the musical backing suc“
as it was could afford to be weak and thin. That it was not wea*.
and thin is a nice bonus, but the point I’m trying to make is tha:
Neu 75 thrived on Im-balance. It was Im-balance that gave the
epic side opener “Hero” its mesmerising power. For over si*,
minutes, those crunching guitars never let up. They start a
Full-on and they Maintain. No guitar solos at all, but a constar.
barrage of Johnny Thunders-“Frankenstein” Ernie Ernie Ernie-
ing On & On & Fucking on. And they had key changes. Tha:
was pop. No-one did that except the Sex Pistols two years latet
- and it uplifts the slavering hound in each us in such an Obvi
ous but Glorious Way.

A Summary of Neu!

That was the end of the Neu! story. But the fall-out and reper¬
cussions from those three albums was (and is) immense and :
is only now that the implications are being understood. In keep¬
ing with the spirit of the other most famous German duos -
Cluster and Kraftwerk - Neu! was made of two extremely pov. -
erful personalities. Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger argued,
they fought, they each surrounded themselves with separate
scenes, and they split up twice and had to have time away from
each other.

Of the two, I do consider that Klaus Dinger was the greater
because his contributions most affected the future of music. It
was his influence on the transitional Neu 75 and its follow-up
La Dusseldorf which, in 1976, directly caused David Bowie to
take his Low direction. And, as I must re-state, Klaus Dinger -
direct effect on the Sex Pistols, via Johnny Rotten, can be dis¬
covered merely by playing Neu 75’s “Hero” or “After Eight'
next to any Sex Pistols singles. As a huge fan of Johnny Rotten.

always suspected those riotous key-changes into the Pis-
guitar solos to be the inspiration of some sharp Krautrock-
r rather than the addled mind of some mild and boogie Faces
But it still felt good to have it semi-confirmed by the pre-
ii 1 s Rotten attitude, long green hair and Hawkwind fixation
► 'tvealed in the recent autobiography, Rotten* You know, I
say this over & over till I’m a boring old git but Side 2 is
as fuck and two years ahead. Not the Stooges, not the
s. not American at ALL. You hear “Hero” and “After

- and British punk suddenly makes sense. For a few beau-
months before old-prick Johnny Thunders brought heroin-

ecting into the punk scene, it was really the Neu!-driven
1 of the Sex Pistols that turned on the young punks. And it
Klaus Dinger & Michael Rother who deserved the credit
K never really got it.

\ nd everything about Neu! was punk, and pre-empted punk.

- w as extremely drum-led, yet Klaus Dinger was the great-
n m-drummer ever. He had one drum fill and one drum beat,
ch he played at many different tempos. Dinger was a key-

I player/guitarist first, but could find no drummer nearly
pie enough for what Neu! required. So he did it himself.
ie the photos, the sleeves, everything that Neu! did, it was
'-punk and years ahead. Klaus Dinger was also an exquis-
> glam tart, who cut it in thee most fabulous of ways. His
.gy-Pop-in-the-Photo-Booth image, which shifted around
: time to time but always surrounded him, was one of his
u st successful and endearing traits in the whole of his 10 year
career. That Dinger’s name is not standard currency
icnigst the majority of Heads is one of the great tragedies of
v */n’roll - because the guy deserved to be a fucking big star.
M perhaps time will tell...

j ! R.I.P. - Viva La Dusseldorf & Harmonia's Deluxe

■ he early post-Neu! years, both Dinger & Rother had consid-
Ne success in the art that they created. La Dusseldorf quick-

kfcn/i v Rotten did give it away on a radio show sometime in July 1977, even playing
Ihfr' HammilVs 1975 “Institute of Mental Health, Burning ”from the NADIR’S BIG
pi 4 - VC£ LP, another massive influence on pre-punk.

lv had a big hit with “Silver Cloud”, the attitude of which David I
Bowie again copped in a big way for “A New Career in a New I
Town” on Low. Happily, Klaus Dinger had good artistic and I
commercial success with La Dusseldorf, who recorded three I
very cool LPs between 1976-81. The first. La Dusseldorf, is I
the greatest of the three. It opens with the 13 minute two-chord I
ramalama of “Dusseldorf”, a soft-frantic synth-mantra that I
repeats the word “Dusseldorf” over & over & over again as I
though it is a story. When the song finally comes to an end. I
cheering soccer stadium crowds chorus “Dusseldorf. Dusse -
dorf. Dusseldorf.” Then its off into the next song, another fast I
pre-77 bass-less buzzsaw guitar trip repeating (yet again) the I
single word “Dusseldorf” over & over. This song is called, ot
course, “La Dusseldorf”. Perhaps it is the female partner of the I
first song. Or maybe it doesn’t matter at all when you’re Klaus I
Dinger and on-one with your mates. The following two albums, I
Viva and Individuellos were both crazed Bavarian cosmic I
knees-ups of the first order, mainly because Klaus Dinger had
an uncanny ability to sing about serious subjects in a way that
had you both rolling in the aisles and caring at the same time.
His melodies were simple but incredibly moving, as well as j
maddeningly catchy.

After the Neu! split, Michael Rother ran to the role of Clus¬
ter’s producer for their forthcoming album Zuckerzeit. This was
the first Cluster album in years and it was hugely Rother-influ-
enced. Zuckerzeit means ‘Sugartime’. And the exquisitely
unhinged toytown Velvets melodies were superimposed over
Moebius & Roedelius’ utterly catchy but crazy idea of what
Pop-music was. Cyclical synthesizer riffs over archaic drum-
boxes and dumbfounding insistent melodies as stupid as the
titles (“Caramel”, “Marzipan”, “Hollywood”, “Rote Riki , etc.)

Then Rother, Moebius & Roedelius reformed Harmoma for
one final LP, the stunning beauty called Deluxe. The British

writer Biba Kopf recently wrote:

“Of all the great German groups of the mid-70s, Harmoma
must rank among the most mysteriously overlooked.

And it is true. Deluxe is a magnificent album that everyone
should own. It is melodic in a most melancholic way. Weeping
synthesizers and weeping guitars over electric percussion and

\m:dy early polytone keyboards. They were joined on drums by
Burn Guru’s Mani Neumeier, who lifted the Harmonia sound
fir beyond that of the first LP. Deluxe has a tragic magic to it
klai is reminiscent of epic poems like Longfellow’s Hiawatha
or the short stories of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book. And one

* ng on Deluxe stands out to utterly confound my belief that
K.jlus Dinger was the driving force of Neu! The song is
“Monza”, and it pre-empted the clatter beats of La Dusseldorf
bs some months. Was this a combative stance on the part of
Michael Rother? He knew full well that the La Dusseldorf LP
mas going to sound the same way. Perhaps it was the fallout
from a truly symbiotic relationship. Certainly, when Michael
Rother went solo, the first few LPs (, Sterntaler , Flammende
Herzen) were recorded with Can’s Jaki Leibezeit, who could
offer Rother that steady unfussy non-drumming and the same
'udimentary Dinger drum-fills that he had obviously grown
addicted to. Whatever, the music and story of Neu! is a legend

* ith a great canon of work attached to it. And its influence until
the '90s is minuscule compared to its future position in Rock¬
ed roll.

CHAPTER 6

Can

Any Colour is Bad (1968-73)

"Inability is often the mother of restriction, and restriction is the
great mother of inventive performance. "

Holger Czukay of Can

Can was formed in the exhilarating revelation of seasoned
musicians discovering rock’n’roll. Whilst most rock musicians
play only what they are capable of, most members of Can were
over 30 and music veterans when the group formed. And such
was the effect of psychedelic rock on all of them that they had
to radically change their style in order to even play the music.

Since 1965, two students of Stockhausen, Holger Czukay
and Irmin Schmidt, had talked of forming a group together, a
group that would both utilise and transcend ethnic, electronic
experimental, and modern classical music. But now it was 1967
and Czukay was a music teacher. One of his students, Michael
Karoli, had recently blown Czukay’s mind by playing him the
Beatles’ “I am the Walrus”. And it was soon after this, whilst
listening to Jimi Hendrix, The Mothers of Invention and the
Velvet Underground’s Banana LP one night, that Irmin
Schmidt and Holger Czukay finally decided to take the plunge
and include rock’n’roll elements in their group. Like Kraftwerk
later, they were from an extremely academic background, and
were uncomfortable yet fascinated by every aspect of rock¬
’n’roll. But it was rock’n’roll’s sense of moment that thrilled
them most of all.

Irmin Schmidt was 31 years old, and a life-long fan of exper-

fcentalist Olivier Messiaen. At the famous Darmstadt Kurse
ft. Neue Musik, he had studied under Stockhausen, Luciano
p:'io, John Cage and Pierre Boulez; four of the greatest com¬
bi 'ers of the 20th Century. Schmidt had been a conductor, a
fc-.dng teacher, a theatre-critic, and a writer for both theatre
ar d films before his move to rock’n’roll.

With Schmidt on organ and piano, and Czukay’s student,
me 19 year old Michael Karoli on guitar, Holger Czukay
those to play bass. He claims that this was initially because
Kio-one really listened to the bass,” but Czukay also required
freedom to operate the tape-machine, and it was as editor of
the group’s musical visions that he would come to be known.

ailing themselves Inner Space, the group found a free-jazz
drummer, again over 30 years old, and again on a new musical
^uest.

Jaki Liebezeit had been playing free-jazz in Spain for five
years. But recently, he had had a moment of immense life¬
rhanging clarity at a show he’d played. Leibezeit had been
touched and changed by the words of, what he called, "some
kind of freak.” The “freak” had slagged Leibezeit for playing
:ree-jazz, and said: “Why do you play that shit? You must play
monotonously.” Those words stayed with him forever. Jaki
Leibezeit had never heard the word ‘monotonously’ used in a
positive way before, and the pealing bells of truth shot through
him. Leibezeit changed his drum style immediately. And it
was with this concept of monotony that the drummer entered
Inner Space. He, in turn, chided Holger Czukay for playing
;oo much bass, and insisted that he try to play bass with only
one tone.” Irmin Schmidt was later to claim that he himself
often played nothing on early tracks, so trained as he was for
standard musical achievement. So Inner Space was forged on
restriction, and they were still talking obsessively about it
when Hildegard Schmidt, Irmin’s wife, found their first
singer.

Malcolm Mooney was a black American, a sculptor and
teacher. He had never sung before but threw himself into the
role with such fervour that the others readily followed him.
Mooney suggested that they became known as The Can, a pos¬
itive name that had many meanings. In Turkish, ‘can’ (pro-

nounced “chan”) means both ‘life’ and ‘soul’. In JapaneseJ
‘kan’ means both ‘feeling’ and ‘emotion’, whilst ‘chan’ meanJ
love when used in salutation. (Later on, Irmin Schmidt would
playfully claim that Can stood for Communism AnarchisnJ
Nihilism.) On becoming The Can, the presence of Malcolm
Mooney forced the group into even greater musical restric¬
tions, until late 1968 saw them as an experimental rock band
It was now that their friend, Mani Lohe, owner of the castle
Schloss Norvenich, suggested they build a rehearsal studio in
his home. Can organised a show at Norvenich, a happening to
be recorded, in which they would play two long performances
of a song called “You Doo Right”. In keeping with Can’s trulv
restrictive style, the whole thing was recorded on two reel-tt I
reel tape recorders and parts were later used on their fir-
album.

The early recordings that Can made were a disparate cross]
between early Captain Beefheart (Safe as Milk period up t I
Mirror Man), Freak Out -period Mothers of Invention, sta:
tlingly like The Fall, and specifically like the Velvet Unde: i
ground. Yet the sound of late ’68 Can is still very much its owr
A brutally simple intuitive trip, repetitive to the extreme, an. |
rarely a note-for-note cop of any other band. It is, perhaps, iron
ic then that Can’s classic debut LP Monster Movie began the:
career on record desperately trying not to play the Velve:
Underground’s “European Son”. But try as they did, still the
album opener, “Father Cannot Yell”, would return again an. |
again to its roots, only to transcend similarities and shake ou:
yet another classic song from the same form.

“Father Cannot Yell” was a fascinating and fruitful exercise
that T.S. Eliot would have been proud of. In his essay “The I
Metaphysical Poets”, Eliot chided the establishment for alwa> >
seeing similarities between artists as negative. Why, he asked
was it not possible to return to the ancient bardic perspective
that happily accepted the apprentice’s use of his master’s blue¬
print? Only in acceptance of what had gone before could he
himself truly move on. Can certainly proved this on Monster
Movie. It’s an incredible record in terms of both original inver

'^tmemiess

Cannot Yell” gave the world a great song that lesser artist

-id have shied away from attempting, and so placed them on
international stage immediately.*

On its release in August 1969, Can’s Monster Movie , was
ally acclaimed. One of the recordings of “You Doo Right”
m the Schloss Norvenich show now covered the whole of
c 2, and was a moving epic masterpiece. And it was on the
punk holler of “Outside Your Door” that Malcolm Mooney
piously defined their musical stance with the repeated cho-
Any colour is bad.” Unlike the Kosmische music of most
the other great German bands, Can had stylised themselves
n the beginning as raw and expressionist, with clearly
bed boundaries. But Mooney was having problems. The
nd show at Schloss Norvenich clashed with an exhibition
• e the performers. The constant movement of the audience,
i saw the event more as a multi-media piece than the group’s
I show, caused Mooney to start singing “Upstairs, Down-
rv Upstairs, Downstairs” over and over until he was repeat-
the words on his own and the rest of the group had finished.

. ntinued through the intermission and into Can’s second
I nuance, eventually collapsing from exhaustion. The rest
[ an accepted this as part of the ‘whatever’ that happens at
i events, Michael Karoli even saying: “It was quite nice
t >. Malcolm lost his head, which happens sometimes. The
u sphere was really good.”

B ut Mooney found life in West Germany increasingly diffi-
He was totally out there and he was black, too. A Jewish
M of Mooney told him that he was on the wrong path. This
v iv affected the singer, and he began to visit a psychiatrist
treatment. But soon after the five-hour happening they
tad ‘Can-action-rock-incitement-play ground”, Malcolm
Bney’s psychiatrist advised him to return to the United
and, in December 1969, Can’s ‘linguistic space commu-
•or' did just that.

4o ney’s departure devastated Can. He had named them.

Itof' Can’s DELAY 1968 LP, released in 1982. These recordings were made just
'<>me just before, the MONSTER MOVIE sessions. All are very original,
Velve ts. With this weight of material to chose from for MONSTER MOVIE, we
Hfcr that Can knew precisely which kind of nuasic they wished to be aligned
®N>rn;ng the albamwith “Father Cannot Yell".

And he had forged their new direction. Though he often missed
whole shows, the group was not prepared for his departure and.
from December ’69 to May 1970, they recorded only one new
piece of music. But in May, they played a four night resident
at Munich’s new discotheque The Blowup, and it was during
afternoon coffee on a Munich sidewalk that Holger Czuka>

discovered Can’s new singer.

The meeting was typically Can. Whilst Jaki Liebezeit wa>
still screaming “No, no, it can’t be true, about Malcoli
Mooney to anyone who would listen, Holger Czukay was
calmly asking the young Japanese busker who had been plagu¬
ing them all afternoon if he would sing at the show tonight. I
was to be an inspired choice. And this quote from Holger
Czukay encapsulates the aims of Can in mid-1970.

“It was a furious concert, first Damo was singing ver
dramatically, it was very peaceful, he was very concentrated
And then like a Samurai warrior he sprang up, he took tht
microphone in his hands and he screamed at the audience. Tht
audience got so nervous, people began to hit each other, there
was a fight and almost everybody left. At the end there wen
only some diehard fans left, 30 Germans, 30 Americans, ven
enthusiastic, and the rest of the concert was just played ft
them. It was beautiful, a very good concert. ”

Damo Suzuki’s erotic careless Devotional at the micr
phone was to completely change Can, and soon. In less thai J
month, Damo was singing “Don’t Turn the Light on. Leave Mt
Alone” at Inner Space, feeling freaked out and uncomfortable
It’s interesting to note that this song predates what woe.
become the standard Damo groove by a year at least, echom
later classics “I’m so Green” and “Moonshake”. But first, C_
recorded one of their greatest ever songs. And though it va
Damo’s, the Can sound was still writing for Malcolm Moon.
“Mother Sky” is a 14 minute trance-driving “L.A.Worn.,
through the streets of Cologne at 4 a.m. The group are drivi |
in a large pre-war American convertible, and Damo is hover: |
above them singing. “Mother Sky” brought Michael Karo; 1
guitar blasting out with a hitherto unseen force. It just scythci
down all around it and is psychedelic as all hell. A sexy J apart
ese geisha one minute, a twang blues beyond Robby Kreigi

next. And 14 and a half minutes is a long time to really
tee out.

In Damo Suzuki, Can had found their bubblegum hero. For
tio possessed a wistfulness in his voice which was a very
ching pop delivery, like David Cassidy’s, a thrilling teenage
that made me understand why my girlfriends needed their
nnys, Davids and Marcs. I had a huge crush on Damo Suzu-
and still do. I stood in my bedroom aged 15 ripping off the
te he’s pulling on the back of Ege Bamyasi. That pose and the
Morrison shot on the front of Absolutely Live are still my
t'avourite all-time images of rock’n’roll singers.
v 'ptember 1970 saw the release of an interim album The
Soundtracks * containing some old Malcolm Mooney
:s but with a majority of recent Damo stuff. “Mother Sky”
up the first three quarters of Side 2, and eclipsed every-
i on the record. Irmin Schmidt’s passion for recording film
c had ensured that Can had been made available for all
~an filmwork. Now this was all brought together on a very
: 'ecord, but one which did not play like a complete album.
S at the end of 1970, Can were back and ready. And with
i *:tude a mile high, they stormed into Schloss Norvenich
. now re-named Inner Space and, in three months, record-
v epic masterpiece Tago Mago. But even in 1970, Melody
ter was saying, “If the Velvets play in a junkyard, the Can
•one-where more sinister still.”

: v. Can had descended to a deeper place than the Velvet
ground had ever attempted, far deeper than the street,
m nto the Unconscious. It was more like France’s ridicu-
b- r . nevertheless sensational Magma, another group of
temg high magicians.

)l fo Mago opened with “Paperhouse”, “Mushroom Head”
rOh. Yeah” on Side 1. It’s as good as they ever got. The
tic sounds only like itself, like no-one before or after,
ferikng Can themselves. It’s pointless to describe the music,
huge free-rock, as though each member of Can has a

r THE FAUST TAPES, Can did not think of THE CAN SOUNDTRACKS as an
m fdknr-up to MONSTER MOVIE at the time, but it was so well received that
Jb* t has been accepted as such.

jusi
def

SllZUK.

- no“Aumen”. Irmin Schmidt intones for 17
"*.T , £ Ind sailing truly out there. At times

ness that is too much. Chanting with
.jt > takes the musician far out of him-
s . ate " in which the 13th Floor Elevators
,..." .|t The magic of the records made it a
Njm . an esoteric rock classic. But even as
.« , it can be seen that there was a schism

- d the rest of the group, which was more than

a Whereas Malcolm Mooney had practica y

f"—— ST—

themselves Like many true stars, alt te foible, were as

rs" “xr»:r-u.-

1972 follow-up was virtually that record. There were

namo at the controls, grabbing hold of the music and filling the
track with his fantasia. Unfortunately, it was to be the on y true
Damo Suzuki/Can album. He would lose control to the j

later on, but for E ge Bamyasi ihe^ ^traeV goto. iWi \h<t
S&igfe, “Sfxp&s?”, oozdddo&o wrojyy — ix> early J 071. Can went

to number one in the West German Top 30, selling ovei 200,000
copies. o

As a bass player, Holger Czukay is comparable only to John
Cale. But as an editor, he is surely second to none. Though epics
ike “You Doo Right” had been recorded live, many of Can’s
greatest songs started out as free-form jams. It was Holger
Czukay’s mind that created verses, choruses and a structure for
them. The early Can LPs all relied heavily of Czukay’s brutal
editing blade, and it’s a deficiency of the later records that he
allowed certain sections of music to remain. But now was a dif¬
ficult time for Can. The British press lauded them as saviours of
-ock, and made a big deal about the Stockhausen connection.
With shit like Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman all over the
news, it was hard for Can to limit themselves - especially as
hey could really play up a storm if they wanted to. Nick Kent
.vas driven to write:

“Only Can have motivated themselves out of the Krautrock
.’.one to really merit superlatives as such.”

Sunday papers, art magazines, even the likes of the Specta-
r <r (who knew truly fucking zilch about rock’n’roll) wrote:

“If you consider yourself in any sense involved with modern
music, you cannot overlook them.”

And then the horrific Sunday Times rock critic, Derek
Jewell, wrote:

“No band in the world illustrates the inadequacies of today’s
-.usical terminology more so than Can.”

It was the start of the deification and de-mystification of
Can, and the end of their rocking freakout trip. The next LP
- iture Days was a schizophrenic stalemate. Opening with the
tie track, one of Can’s most wistful, epic and exquisitely beau-
mi songs. Future Days promised everything but did not deliv-
r. Side 2 was a shambles. The other great song, another David
jssidy-voiced monster called “Moonshake”, could have
come from Ege Bamyasi. But Damo Suzuki was very unhappy
.id knew that the balance within the group had gone. They
•ere now very separated from the West German scene and had
| •..•come an international band, subject to the eulogising of more

average artists who used their name like a by-word. And after a
show at the Edinburgh Festival, on August 25th 1972, Damo
Suzuki left Can. The group continued as a four-piece for many
more years, producing very patchy, flawed LPs which still
occasionally contained songs of a stunning quality. At times,
they even transcended their old sound. But this was never for
more than a couple of songs per album. Like most teenage Can
fans, I lost interest when Damo left, and I cringed when I saw
them on the Old Grey Whistle Test. Holger Czukay was wear¬
ing extremely crap white gloves and the whole thing came over
as a muso trip. Of course, it wasn’t meant to be, and many fans
love all their albums right to the end. I just had it in my head that
ANY COLOUR IS BAD. Or as Jaki Leibezeit later said:

“When we began it was great, everybody just had a few
notes he could play so it stayed simple. But later our technical
abilities increased, Holger could play very fast on his bass,
Irmin could play a lot of technical things, and Micky could play
very difficult things. It began with TAGO MAGO. I mean
“Hallelujah ” is monotonous, but not in the best way. And it
really went off with FUTURE DAYS, I think, it became too
symphonic. ”

But Can will be remembered as one of the great 20th Centu¬
ry bands. I’ve listened to their music for over 23 years, and I
still freak out at their staying power. All of them continued in
music after Can’s split in 1978, and all have made great music
at some time since then. Every one of Can’s members is a hero,
a Wizard and a True-star.

CHAPTER 7

Amon D uul ||

The Grimreaper is a Krautrocker & Other Stories

•A crazed Gothic-Germanic teenage horror movie fan refraction of
:he whole early murky psychedelic fuzztone feedback modal
music fad."

Lester Bangs on Amon Duul II:
Psychotic Reactions & Carburettor Dung

An Introduction

Of all the great Krautrock groups, Amon Duul II were surely
he most true to the trail. Starting as an ill-fated politico/musi-
-al commune, the group at all times maintained the aspirations
and ongmal yrsmn °f the great Kosmische music first defined
" I969 ’ and whlch we v e come to call Krautrock. They were
ne group whose music continued to feel the pain of post-war

fVr aH m U °T W a h0 retained the elements long

‘ be ° ther bands had been assimilated into the regular
German Rock-scene or become internationalised like Can and

■ angerme Dream. As late as their 1975 LP Hijack, Amon Duul

■ were still playing “Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles”
;' th a , 8 “ e u rgU f r over a gbtterbeat (on “Da Guadaloup”),

- ter which their bass player Lothar Meid left to form Jackboot'

. he Amon Duul story extends outside music and into lifestyle
^nd, ini that way, the music was sometimes secondary. Tours
•could feature yery different line-ups to the then current album!

side-projects abounded, and collaborations with Popol Vuh ai
one point made the two bands seem interchangeable. And
Amon Diiiil II’s music was definitely badly affected by the con¬
stant comings and goings in the band - they’ve certainh
recorded their fair share of shit. Later albums like Made In Ger¬
many and Hijack oftentimes fell into a dreaded Euro-sound but.
even at their worst, Amon Diiul II always displayed more than
just vestiges of their former outrage. And, more than that, thej
were a Yoko Ono-inspired punk commune band with consider
able stamina...

Phallus Deitk The Munich Commune-scene

Munich in the late ’60s was a hip scene. And in 1967, amidst the
free-jazz, the politics and the idealism, a commune called
Amon Duiil sprang up. A floating group of 10/12 musician v
political activists, and psychedelic artists came together in j
large house in the city for the specific purpose of creating all
kinds of political art. But the house fell through and Amon Diiui
tried for several months to re-locate, in the interim all staying ia
a mutual friend’s apartment with just two large rooms. But, as
the Munich writer Felix Scorpio wrote, in article No.52 of the
now-legendary International Times : “.. .the experience of real¬
ly uptight community living sorted them out somewhat, with
the result that they split.”

And so, in October 1968, the peace commune played thei:
first big show, the Essenner Sontag pop festival, as two separate
bands, Amon Diiiil I and Amon Diiul II. Most of the Amon
Diiiil I story has been told earlier in this book, but such was the
charm of the original commune that both groups would inter¬
twine from time to time, and there was a constant trickle of
improving musicians moving from Mark I to Mark II through¬
out the early ’70s. As time passed, Amon Diiul I would spend
more time involved in projects like the Berlin Kommune Eins,
using their music only to promote their activities.

The leader of the split was Chris Karrer, one of the com¬
mune’s founders. As a free-jazz violinist and guitarist of some
experience, he couldn’t bear to see the commune’s music
falling into a free-form freakout of bongos and acoustic guitars

In the hippy atmosphere, there was no way to exclude
tone with a spliff and a set of maracas.

\er at the Amon Diiiil I commune at this time, the line-up
DarticuMy percussion-based. Get this 1969 sleeve credit
their Psychedelic Underground debut: Rainer-12-string,
's/Ulrich - bass & doublebass/Helge - conga/Krische -
& piano/Ella — drum & vocals/Angelika — drum &
Uschi- maracas!!!

is Karrer set up Amon Diiiil II with the guitarist John
erl and Renate Knaup, a former teacher with an exquis-
rtic Yoko inflection. Another founder-member of the
Diiiil commune, the free-jazz drummer Peter Leopold,

• lowed. Their artist friend Falk-Ulrich Rogner joined on
and keyboard bass, attempting a Ray Manzarek role

1 the group. But the pleasures of keyboard bass soon evap-
: :or Rogner, and Amon Diiiil were joined on bass guitar
\ e Anderson, a British roadie for the unknown Kipping-

t Lodge (later the pub-rock band Brinsley Schwartz.) Amon
IPs first album was 1969’s Phallus Dei. It was hard,

* and very innovative. Chris Karrer’s violin and Falk-U.
er*s synthesizer conspired to create some very pre-Roxy
c soundscapes. And the opening “Kanaan” was an exotic

2 of Da Capo -period Love played by an Iron Curtain
ers of Invention. The middle European harmonies and
ant rhythms created a hurried matt of percussion, springy
noorland bog, undulating and very cool. Like their corn-

sister group, on Phallus Dei , Amon Diiiil II were also
: by percussion. They were joined on vibes by Embryo’s
istian Burchard, on congas by Holger Trulzsch from Popol
and Amon Diiiil’s other violinist Shrat was now solely
. ing the bongos. With two drummers as well, the sound was
kc any other rock’n’roll band. It was a swirling meltdown of
tonic San Francisco Kosmische psychedelia with absolute-
- o commercial restraints. The result was quite incredible. On
LP, Amon Diiiil II had combined the strident organised
norable Dervish rock weirdness of Side 1 with the title track
>ide 2, a wild 20 minute improvised, cut-up dreamscape of
nische music that at times organised itself into a pure hill-
. speedball rush. And, as I wrote earlier, the whole thing

came in a two colour red/blue freakout sleeve any real Hej|
would kill for.

Yeti

But whilst Amon Duiil II were immediately big in West Gr*
many, Phallus Dei was ignored in Britain. Still, the group had
big allies at Liberty/UA, their London record-company which
despite the M.O.R. image of its U.S. parent company, was rut
here in Britain by total Heads. Andrew Lauder was thei
extremely young boss - hanging with the Notting Hill freak*
and getting out of control. Through Abi Ofarim, the entrepre*
neur who sung the huge ’60s hit “Cinderella/Rockerfella'\
Lauder had already brought Can to his new label, and his asso
ciation with the Notting Hill-based Clearwater collective socr
brought the first Hawkwind album to Liberty Records. Da\t
Brock, leader of Hawkwind, soon heard a similarity in attitude
in Amon Duiil II’s already released Phallus Dei. The two
groups became big friends and Hawkwind’s loud proclama¬
tions on all things Amon Diiiil made the group at least an inter
esting enigma until they could start to sell records. And ;b
K laus Doldinger, they now had a capable manager and a rea
inspiration. So the group returned to the studios to record thei
second and most legendary album, Yeti.

This epic double-album was to change everything for them
And in Britain, they were soon to become heroes of the under
ground. The John Peel Show, already champion of so muc
German music, embraced Yeti with real love and blasted Amur
Diiul II’s long epics across the British night into every youn.
Head’s pad (or bedroom if you were 13 as I was then). Even th.
sleeve of Yeti showed that it was a confident ground-breakin.
record. This was the first of Falk-Ulrich Rogner’s slide projec¬
tion covers, and the star was Shrat the bongo-player, with hi
weird low forehead and a strange peasant dress, wielding 2
huge scythe across a field of bright yellow ground fog; the
Grimreaper as a Krautrocker. It was a mesmerising image, am
one which would stay with them throughout their caree:
though Shrat would quit soon after. Indeed Amon Diiiil them
selves understood the power of the Shrat image because ii

‘ their future logo. Though their sound was pared down
one drummer and one bongo player, still the ancient
an mystery was achieved in the magical swirl of the
lc Yeti was a fabulous double-album - 68 minutes of some
greatest Krautrock ever. The first record was filled with
• ing mini-epics: “Soap Shop Rock”, the wiry medley,
the ridiculously named “Flesh-Coloured Anti-Aircraft
six minutes of mythical fear-inducing magic tales.
* the hell is going on in that song? Something scary is
ed but the precise meaning always eludes me. But the
■est of all their punk songs is “Archangel’s Thunderbird”,
car that Renate implores everyone to drive over a “Louie
' Boeing 747 riff that has them come in late on the break-
m. kind of like Jim Morrison’s famous live TV fluff on
iich Me”. I love that they kept it in. It shows such of-the-
ent confidence. The drumming is not rock’n’roll at all,
-gh who knows what it is. It crashes in and out of the beat,
c-times sounding like a musician playing a different song,
t> tor the beat to inexorably return. And Yeti is Amon Diiiil
greatest improvisation LP of all. The three very long tracks
•rganic and sensational, the side long title-track is an epic
e of turbulent out-there Kosmische Musik. But my
ante piece is easily “Sandoz in the Rain”, on which both
?n Diiiil II and members of Amon Diiiil I were re-united.
> beautiful song is very reminiscent of the sound of Amon
j 1 Ts then current Paradieswarts Diiiil LP. It may be because
ne eerie-beautiful rock’n’roll fake English that Rainer
□er sings.

imunal Upheaval & Fragmentation as the Hits
> Coming...

I the Amon Diiiil II community was changing constantly,
d the group suffered considerable psychic damage from all
upheaval. Shrat left to form his own bongo-based group
i~ieti. Their British bass player, Dave Anderson, left to join
i* kwind, Falk-Ulrich Rogner left but continued to guest on
zsn and design their record-sleeves. And Renate Knaup left
■ :he first of many times. Unfortunately, this all conspired to

give the next LP a very stop-start feel to it. Dance of the Let
mings (Tanz der Lemminge) was extremely disappointing, ai
even making it a double-album did not hide the fact. The er
freakout “Marilyn Monroe Memorial Church” was the so
highlight, but even this drum-led frenzy-piece was inorgan
and stilted compared to their other improvisations. But tl
Falk-U Rogner sleeve was another mystifying classic, and tl
impenetrability of Dance of the Lemmings meant that it to<
quite a while to suss that, by Amon DiiiiTs standards, th
record was a pile of pedestrian shit.*

But such was life in the commune. And finally the tense pe(
pie packed up and left so that Amon Diiiil II could get goc
again. The fog visibly lifted around the group, and so son;
improvements were immediately forthcoming. Back can-
dear Renate to sing some of her best ever Amon Diiul. And o\
of nowhere came the most beautiful Teutonic folkrock albur
Carnival In Babylon . No wonder Amon Diiiil II announce
their rebirth on the record label, where they wrote:

“THANKS TO ALL THE PARANOID PEOPLE WH<
MEANWHILE MOVED OUT.”

Carnival In Babylon was a mystical masterpiece whk
existed entirely on its own. In some ways, Amon Diiul II wei
getting closer to an orthodox rock sound, but their bizarre att
tude to mixing records put a strange emptiness into the fulle
of music. Lothar Meid’s bass is pumped full up, xylophone
beat out melodies, whilst the drums,

though clattery and powerful, are by the nature of the mi
reduced to a papery pitter-patter. And all clothed in that Falk-
Rogner sleeve; another of the type that would in future mal
Amon Diiiil II legendary merely for their LP covers. And wii
songs such as “All the Years Round”, “Tables are Turned
“C.I.D. in Uruk” and “Shimmering Sand”, they delivered a
unearthly folk album to the world. Britain was listening i

* I’ve seen this album referred to as TANZ DER LEMMINGE in magazines over ri
past few years, as though the British name is not the original. This may work as a ki>
of Hindsight Purity, but the album was a big underground hit in Britain, in 1971 ,<
DANCE OF THE LEMMINGS and not in its German-titled form. As Krautrock is
subjective British phenomenon, then DANCE OF THE LEMMINGS should rei
the name.

Diiiil II a great deal now. Carnival In Babylon was much
c ' astening than the previous albums, and John Peel played
le Years Round” constantly. By the middle of 1972, the
. was a standard feature of many a Head’s bedroom, and
>n Diiiil II at last toured Britain. Liberty/UA celebrated the
«. ith the low-price re-release of Phallus Dei on their 99p
M?t label. Of course, certain commune members did not get
music to tour, so they were temporarily replaced, but even
nucleus of John Weinzierl, Chris Karrer, Peter Leopold,
ate Knaup and Falk-Ulrich Rogner would still fall to pieces
i time to time. Perhaps it was the tour, or the sudden out-
4 of concentrated activity. Whatever, Amon Diiiil II hit a
h of structured songwriting that was to be a mixed blessing,
loose semi-structures of Carnival In Babylon were fine
the No-structure-at-all of much of their previous albums,
unfortunately, hereafter Amon Diiiil II really got into
per’ songwriting.

The negative aspect of the new songier Amon Diiiil II was
i immediately apparent. Indeed, only seven months after
- previous LP, Wolf City was a revelation. It was a huge
-m recorded by a transitional group, but somehow in a state
ery inspiring flux. Only John Weinzierl, Lothar Meid and
any Fichelscher played on every track, but the wealth of
J was dramatic and different in every way. It was progres-
: rock like Van Der Graaf Generator is progressive - huge
Ntructured but in an unglamorous way, and ultimately
*n and punk in its execution. Their sense of time was urgent
• ital, their alchemical time changes beyond the mere intel-
dlism of shit like Genesis or Yes. And from the opening
i '"Surrounded By The Stars”, Wolf City emitted a grand
esty that they had hinted at since the first track of their Phal-
Dei debut, exhibiting a curious Detroit intensity towards
ung structured progressive rock.

\nd so 1972/73 became the most successful but also most
> al of times for Amon Diiiil II. The huge influx of guest
cians, and the disruptions within the commune, continued
:eate gruelling recording sessions that increasingly frag-
ed the band. Even as Wolf City was being recorded, a
:aneous sister project called Utopia was being formulated

within the same sessions, by bassist Lothar Meid, along v. M
Amon Diiiil producer Olaf Kubler, and guest organ:
Embryo’s Jimmy Jackson. Using these much straighter mu' J
cians who aspired to be as ‘good’ as the British or America ■
was later to be a particularly negative influence on the grour 4
songwriting and direction. The resulting LP Utopia was a v,\ A
derful mystery but confusing to British audiences, who recoJ
nised the Falk-U. Rogner sleeve, noted the similar line-up m
musicians, and even a re-recording of Wolf City's “Deutsdl
Nepal”. And confusion clearly reigned over the Amon Duiil 1
camp. Utopia was only partially Krautrock, but aspired to a
international, veering into true Traffic/Stones grooves at timed

With enormous amounts of songs to chose from, the groLW
was beginning to lose its way. Amon Duiil II chose to re-group
In late 1972, their ‘classic’ line-up went out on tour and hoped
to gain some objective overview of their situation. They pla\ eJ
only old songs from their first three LPs, which British audid
ences knew best in any case, and the tour was a roaring succev
But United Artists released an average cheapo £1.99 concer
LP called “Live in London” (really recorded at the Croydo*
Greyhound), whose improvisations and multiple titled space
rock pieces were quite at odds with current Diiiil songwriting
For the young fan it was a confusing time, and I can we
remember having no idea what to spend my minuscule
resources on in the Amon Diiiil II department. Too many mid¬
price records dissipates the fan’s pride in his favourite artist-
and the sheer volume of LPs to chose from was mindblowing
Between July 1972 and August ’73, there were five albums t
chose from! Wolf City, the re-issued Phallus Dei , Utopia , Lixt
in London.. . And then, just one month later came their glarr
pop album Viva La Trancel It was all too much.

The inevitable had happened. Amon Diiiil II had burned tiu
weirdness out of themselves with too many guest musician'
diluting the stew. Whilst they played the most mind-blowin-
head music, Amon Diitil’s pop was often formulaic and trite i:
a nasty ‘Euro’ way. The following albums were quite enjoyable
but patchy, and even included some of their best oven
Krautrock references. “Mr. Kraut’s Jinx” and “La Krautoma
both appeared on the sprawling 1975 double-album Made In

rrmany . It was a long time since the first ‘kraut’ reference on
■on Diiiil I’s 1969 “Mama Diiiil and her Sauerkrautband
out!” But still the group was at it - their music changed
t the stance remained.

I never saw Amon Diiiil II. By the time they toured, I was
mg out with Jane Smith, a Krautrock fan who was jealous as
of Renate Knaup, even though her entire image was ripped
‘ Renate’s look from the inside gatefold of Carnival In Baby-
t But I bought that average Live In London LP and still have
ust for the sleeve. It is Amon Diiiil’s finest Krautrock
''lent... A gigantic German-helmeted Stormtrooper insect
. - s the London Post-Office tower from its foundations as
ng-saucers lay the city to waste overhead - the greatest
'r.iest Krautrock image of all.

CHAPTER 8

Timothy Leary &
AshRaTempel |

Kosmische Musik Meets Sci-fi

N.B. When I started writing this KRAUTROCKSAMPLER J
September 1994 (CE), I had no idea that the book would eim
like a soap opera. I knew that the Cosmic Couriers ’ scene n M
the only one to retain its true Kosmische side beyond 1974 , r A
/ knew nothing of the inspired Vision behind it. And as 1 dim
deeper, a Beautiful & Dutiful Enlightenment was unearthM
glowing red hot in Berlin and Cologne. And one that had begu J
in the white mountains of Switzerland. It y s a short thrilling stofM
with a tragic ending for some of the main participants. And thd
music created from this scene soared like Nothing Else...

Timothy Leary Escapes

By 1972, Dr. Timothy Leary was on the run from pretty muctJ
every authority. Now effectively banned from the West, Lear
had been called “the most dangerous man in the world” by Pre^
ident Richard Nixon for his advocation of enlightenmer
through LSD. And Dr. Leary had served a small part of a 10 yea-
jail sentence for his official ‘crimes’ - possession of half a*
ounce of marijuana and some roaches found in his car. Bml
everybody knew that this was just a smokescreen, a diversion b> |
the authorities who had been out to get the good doctor since he
had begun to shout his mouth off about acid, with his statement I

-is ’Tune In, Turn On, Drop-out” and “Deal for Real”. But
y. an accepted hero of most of the ’60s Underground, had

• need the authorities that he would be a ‘soft’ prisoner and
Noon sprung from his Minimum Security jail at San Luis

) by The Weathermen, one of the most extreme of the mil-
' Yippie political action groups of the ’60s. The Weathermen

• ered Dr. Leary and his wife, Rosemary, into the guardian-
>f Eldridge Cleaver’s Black Panther Party, who promptly

apped them and took them to their new embassy in the north
.an city of Algiers. This embassy, The FLN Headquarters,
*^een set up soon after Algeria had gained independence
i the French - now all Underground parties who had helped
: :cw government in its revolutionary days were welcomed as
ners. Outlawed groups and govemments-in-exile flocked to
: ers to begin again. But here in the echoing opulent domed
ft ding of the FLN Headquarters, with its blue and white
aics, its pillars and balustrade, the mood changed from
- ute to minute. Eldridge Cleaver told Leary that he must give
r Black Panthers $ 10,000 of the $20,000 advance due to arrive
r his forthcoming book Escapades.

v>on, the British psychedelic guru and poet Brian Barritt
■ ^ed in Algiers to see Timothy Leary, hoping to get a fore-
rd written by Leary for his new book Whisper. Barritt was
• ust out of jail, having served four years for smuggling
ken and a quarter pounds of hash into Britain. He and his
ipanion, Liz Elliott, got along fabulously with the Learys,
suggested that they all throw a communal I Ching. The
c«digram that Brian Barritt and Liz Elliott threw was The Wan-
rer, the same hexagram that Rosemary and Tim Leary had
' >wn in San Luis Obisbo prison just before Tim had escaped,
-rred on by the synchronicity, the two couples read this as a
■Jirmation of their Trip together.

With his $ 10,000 dollar share of the book advance promised
: not yet forthcoming, Eldridge Cleaver relaxed his paranoid
r> on Timothy Leary for the time being. And it was during
time that both Leary & Barritt discovered that they had
fceen working independently on similar Neurologic Mind-map
S. stems.

In Algiers, they discovered that the two systems were sim-

ilar enough to be interwoven. They began to talk of “Ps>
Phi”: of the Psychic and of the Physical. They shared psyche¬
delic visions at the dry river-bed near Bou Saada that
unconsciously re-enacted the rituals of Aleister Crowley cV
Victor Neuburg in 1909. Magic fused and sparked all aroun.
as the spectre of Eldridge Cleaver hung over them at all times
Cleaver had had Leary dose him with acid at the FLN Heac
quarters, but throughout the trip Eldridge had visions of hi •
black activist brother, Bobby Seale, in jail and he emerge,
from the trip even more opposed to what he saw as a whiu
cop-out. Cleaver had horrendous flashes of intense rag.
where he saw LSD as a counter-revolutionary drug, sappiiu
the will to change the real world by replacing it with a fab.
new one.

It was in this environment that Brian Barritt & Timoth
Leary’s trip co-agulated into one. Bamtt’s bywords had become
Time and Space. Now Leary renamed his forthcoming book Iru
about Time. As Barritt writes the formula in The Road of Excestl

“Time + Space = Tim-ESP-ace.”

They were on-one and they knew it. And things were getting
spaced and scary. The Black Panthers were laying claim to m
Americans entering Algeria. Their trip moved from the politKS
of International Black Power into an arena of Detroit Ho* *.
lums Replanted. And it was at this time, whilst the Panthers hj|
their fingers in too many pies, that Brian Barritt, Liz Elliott
the Learys fled to Switzerland, the only country which woul
be too haphazard to kick them out.

Switzerland is comprised of many fiercely indepenc.d
mini-states called cantons. Only by allying together expre- N
for the purpose of signing a collective treaty to expel Timed!
Leary could Switzerland eject him. By never staying long ■
one place, the canton-hopping Leary could remain in Switzcf
land for years, though he had to remain underground a: d
times as the CIA were still under orders to return him to Ar *
ica. In Switzerland, the fugitives were received almost as ism
ily. There is a mage on every hill and many of the myst:.l
even today, never make the long descent into the cities. A:i
illusioned ex-MP called Sergius Golowin took the two c ■
pies to his mountain retreat. Golowin was a poet, a mystic a 4

disenfranchised Gypsy leader. His people had come from
t'tern Europe and been scattered in the West, but he often
dressed many of them in the Swiss Alps at times of particu-
’ mportance. As a poet, the works of Sergius Golowin were
Id by all Swiss children with imagination. Now he was a
odle-aged man with three wives, offering long term bespi¬
ts to the Leary Mob. He and his friends, an art dealer called
iri Laszlo and Walter Wegmuller the folk artist, directed
t r guests to a Swiss hideout fuelled by the acid of the Swiss

■ doz company, creators of LSD-25, the very drug that
Pry was so in trouble for advocating. Golowin took them to
Pier with Albert Hoffman, synthesist of the first acid in
; v and got them high with H.R. Giger, later the super-real-
Msionary creator of the Alien. And it was in this environ-
ta* that Timothy Leary and Brian Barritt’s 7-tier system was
coping and flourishing, when Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser came
fcng...

* Kaiser & Ash Ra Tempel land in Switzerland...

* e most successful cult Record Company Producer in the
-in Underground, Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser came to Switzer-
*d looking for more than another hip record. He had the
P r German corporations at his beck and call. He had
fc*i?ed the way the industry was run. And now he wanted
►ws-Spiritual Enlightenment. And most of all a Means of
ligation.

like Timothy Leary, Kaiser was directing a huge scene of
k > and musicians, guiding his Kosmische groups with the
Pr eosmic-aplomb as George Gurdjieff had controlled his

* dances at the beginning of the 20th century, but also
P - g many of the participants crazy, just as Gurdjieff had

■ p'one to do. With his wife and co-producer Gille Let-
h. Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser was constructing an outlandish and

Mlh simple Device for Enlightenment: find the Freaks,
Plhem, inspire them with confidence, record them and stand
IbacL In 1969, Eric Clapton had said that his life-wish was
bfcl the true note that would so touch people to the core that

* * ild instantly Understand. By late 1972, the musicians

around Kaiser were creating pieces that lifted the soul out of im
body - a healing feeling white light sound that made Clapton ■
remarks seem as trite as the licks he was playing. Not so tid
group that the Kaiser had brought with him to Switzerland. A- *
Ra Tempel were thee most exciting, inspired and fucking cra-rJ
Kosmische rock’n’roll group in all Germany. Their two LI
thus far released had taken the metal of Detroit to heights n<J
even considered by the MC5 or the Stooges or even FunkadeJ
ic. Sure those groups had got close on stage. But Ash Ra Ter
pel got it on record. While the collective Detroit obsession w:
the Outer-spacings of Sun Ra and the free-jazz innervisions oil
John Coltrane had been tamed beyond recognition by tbr
American record industry, Ash Ra Tempel suffered no such di -
appointment. And those searching for the fulfilment of th
Detroit promise need have looked no further than Ash Ra Ter
pel in 1971. There’s a part of Iggy Pop’s autobiographical /1
Need More in which he writes (pi7) about the early Stooge
sound thus:

“.. .I’d play this sort of wild Hawaiian guitar with a pick-ir
that I invented, which meant that I made two sounds at or.
time, like an airplane...using 55-gallon oil cans which I g<
from a junkyard and rigged up as bass drums, I homemade .
drumset. For drum sticks I designed these semi-plastic moldec
hammers. Scotty beat the shit out of these cans; it sounded like
an earthquake - thunderous... It was entirely instrumental a
this time, like jazz gone wild. It was very North African, a ver
tribal sound: very electronic. We would play like that for aboi.
10 minutes. Then everybody would have to get really stone.
again... But what we had put into 10 minutes was so total an.
so very savage - the earth shook, then cracked, an.
SWALLOWED ALL MISERY WHOLE.” (my capitals)

Music that Swallowed All Misery Whole...

In the first two Ash Ra Tempel LPs, Ash Ra Tempel an.
Schwingungen, they had captured on record All that Iggy Por
had promised Could-be but, because of Record Industry Hang¬
ups, had been unable to deliver. And this music which couL
Swallow All Misery Whole reached into the core of each musi¬
cian who played in Ash Ra Tempel and pulled out, still wrig-

*: the cosmic conger eel of white light which so few artists
t .apture in the Moment of Recording.*

E >r years I had drooled over that description in / Need More.
t vhmvn many friends that passage -1 had bored them with it.

all the time Ash Ra Tempel had already done it in 1971...
* i was not all without a price. The first LP was by a Kos-
h^ne power-rock trio of gargantuan size. The 20 minute
r- .ng track “Amboss (Anvil)” was all of Iggy Pop’s above
v'.ption and more. Sure it was a fucking cosmic freakout.
n * was played by Renaissance Man and Cosmic Man at the
tee time.

; _ck Jim Morrison’s ridiculous “Renaissance Man of the
mT description.

That was just an excuse to be a fat slob.

That was just an existentialist knee-jerk.

No. No. No.

These freaks were fit. Superhuman. Superman.

They were here to go. But all in good time. And they had
t*:ng power over 20 minute tracks. On “Amboss”, Klaus
hultze plays drums like a hundred drummers. He’s not twice
>werful, he’s a hundred times as powerful. Hartmut Enke,
: spiritual leader of the band, hits his Gibson bass the way
a giant could: the huge extra-longnecked she-bass was
»-ned, cajoled and ultimately goosed into action by this huge
rdNome freak they all called The Hawk. And Manuel
•aching plays blues like Clapton, but right alongside pre-
iptive Keith Levene white noise and egoless as Lou Reed’s
e 1969 rhythm guitar freakouts. The interplay is so intuitive
frequently it’s impossible to hear the instruments - you just
the Music. And the LP was housed in yet another of Ohr
words’ extravagant packages - a centrally opening gatefold
th an Ancient Egyptian exterior, a freaky occult gematriac
lerior, and a tragically beautiful Head-poem that began: “I
the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness
■ing hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the
:gro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix.”

The first four Ash Ra Tempel LPs are so brimming over with high magic that to hear
now on their recent CD re-issues is almost too much.

By the second LP Schwingungen (Vibrations), i
Schultze had temporarily left the band to record his migr
solo album Irrlicht , an album which begins like a night--
some unknown stadium then continues into the very he-
cosmic-dom, Klaus accompanied only by his synthesizer ,
an orchestra which he said later “possibly thought I was t L
In the meantime, Schwingungen saw Ash Ra Tempel g i
through its cosmic Stooges’ Funhouse stage, complete
Mathias Wehler on wailing alto sax, in the Steve McKay ti.
tion. The line-up was augmented by their road-managt'

Pop on congas and Wolfgang Muller on drums, and can .
like an organic freerock blitz. Side 1 featured ultrafreaky sin
John L., recently sacked from Agitation Free for being ju^
much of everything. And on the awesomely tragic 12-m:*
“Flowers Must Die”, John L. pre-empted John Lydon’s L .
wail with a Seering death’s head drama that Never has failec I
bring tears to my eyes. The words, like so many translated r >
’n’roll lyrics, have a vivid and dignified poetic truth in th
delivery that transcends the hippyspeak in which the\
written:

“I see when I come back,

From my lysergic-day-dream
Standing in the middle
Of the glass and neon forest
With an unhappy name: City
Flowers must die...

I want to be a stone, Not living, not Thinking,

A thing without warm blood in the city.”

And so it was that Ash Ra Tempel arrived with Rolf-Uln. ? I
Kaiser in Switzerland for the great meeting of the minds. The':|

was an enormous sense of expectation in the Kaiser camp. Gii .

Letmann was with them to co-produce the project and to gi • c
the Kaiser a little space for his Navigation. Dieter Dierks w -
there, recording engineer of so many of the Ohr LPs, now < ® |
hand with his synthesizers, echo-units, reverbs and, above a
his attitude. Steve Schroyder was there to play organ, recent
sacked from Tangerine Dream for what Edgar Froese ha-
called freaking totally out.” And if there was any worry of a

: was not to be. For when the Leary Mob met the
ng. the sparks flew ever Up-wards...

Festival' - The Kaiser meets Doctor 7Up

: 'sally good at leading the whole thing. ..Everyone who
: Switzerland went with a different impression. To some
ght he was a guru, he was a guru. To someone who
t of him as a friend, he was a friend. If you wanted him to be
l he :ould be a star. It was no problem for Tim !"

Manuel Gottsching

a stone classic in every way. Yes, it is unlikely to find
b> Leary singing lead vocal in a cosmic group, but even
■ that he chose to sing a wild yelping freaked out blues!
i the Kaiser gang had come for Enlightenment, Leary and
Barritt were all ready to play the rock stars, coming on
Him Morrison and Mick Jagger. As both were already in
■ M >s, they had put together the 7Up lyrics around a tradi-
rock’n’roll construction which was totally at odds with
Kosmische sound of Ash Ra Tempel. But Manuel
filing and Hartmut Enke had begun their careers in The
iechase Blues Band back in the mid-’60s, and they quick-
their way through what Barritt & Leary were aiming for.
reconciled it all as a kind of West Coast chordless psy¬
llia, where blues riffs sparkle out of nowhere and the sheer
nt of synthesizers renders everything with an unreal Pere
l early Roxy Music quality. The 7Up image was a hard
rolian statement by Leary, who spiked a large bottle of
p. especially for the recording, and then watched as the
d outside disappeared.

"Up was recorded live at Sinus Studios in Munstergasse,
n. a subterranean horror-chapel that could only be exited
i double cellar doors in the middle of a mainstreet, giving
: appearance of emerging from a crypt. A proper Bern Festi-
had been suggested, but this was never a real possibility
en Leary’s dubious circumstances. Instead, the Leary Mob,
1 all its assortments of freaks and hangers-on, and the Kaiser
"g. less crazy but out of its natural environment, struggled to

achieve what had seemed so easy on the numerous internal: *
al phonecalls. It was a huge group, 12 people actually cot*
tributing to the sound on tape. Four other singers - Mid j
Du we, Portia Nkomo, Bettina Hols and Liz Elliott - jord
Timothy Leary & Brian Barritt on vocals. But by the end of Ai
recording session, no-one knew if there were even eno. d
songs recorded to complete an album and Dieter Dierks fled 1.
Berlin with the master tapes, which he desperately edited a M
re-mixed before anyone could get near them.

Using Barritt’s cosmic equation (Time + Space = Tim-E s •
ace), the album was divided in two parts - Side 1 was “Spate
Side 2 “Time”. They were both extremely different, but e,~ *
was a trip. “Time” is a classic Kosmische Musik astral plaal
freakout, utilising the chords of Schwingungen 's title-tr....
because Manuel Gottsching and Hartmut Enke were convin . -
that they had discovered The Sound of Heaven in that chc * d
sequence. The music of Side 1 ’s “Space” is unlike anyth r.
ever recorded before or after. But that’s probably because "
very idea is just too ridiculous, the whole side being filled v *
wild muscular cosmic blues boogies, with fizzing Dieter Die *
synthesizers rattling over the heads of the musicians, impr. -
nating ever pore of the music and liberating every worn-out r ?
invigorating every lousy blues holler, and turning the wh r
thing into a cosmic Cresta Run of such ferocity that when tf
side is over, the listener has laughed his head off, felt affront,
shouted “Amen” a few times, and been simultaneously sen;
La-la-land.

Sci-Fi Rising

But though the album’s heart belonged to Timothy Leary an!
Brian Barritt, 7Up was a Gotterdammerung for Dieter Dierkv
Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser and Ash Ra Tempel’s guitarist, Man...
Gottsching. The LP became a blueprint for the way to Lhq
future. After the maelstrom of the Bern Festival, everyone had
adjourned to a farm owned by Leary’s friend Mindy, where
they tripped for days and got involved in long drawn-out ^ I
orgies. It was during this time that Timothy Leary explained :o!
Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser his theory ofPsy-Phi. This image remained

~ e Kaiser, who saw it more clearly with the eyes of a cos-
Ak'.man. Psy-phi. Sci-Fi. The psychic and the physical
easily mix to become Science-Fiction. It was almost too
> be true. By realising that the double-play on words
: X- lost in translation, Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser played the pop-
and went for the jugular. From now on Kaiser’s byword
: be ‘Sci-Fi...’

CHAPTER 9

Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser &
The Cosmic Couriers

Sci-Fi Musik to the End of a Dream

"It happened during the acid-trip at Mindy's farm. Rolf and Gilie
were standing at the junction of two footpaths in the middle ofm
field... I happened to be looking from a nearby hilltop just as T*
passed by the crossed paths, and tarried to say a word or two ^
that moment I saw Gille's face shining with adoration for Tim,
saw Rolf see it, too. I believe that Rolf's actions after that expe~
ence were an attempt to try and get Gille to see him as she ha:
seen Tim that day. For that I forgive him, and make him a hero %
did it all FOR A LOOK FROM TFIE GODDESS (my capitals)."

Brian Barritt, The Road of Ex:t i

Rolfs Dream

One night, during the chaotic aftermath of the 7Up session
Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser had a Dream, a Vision. As he lay trippin g
the loft at Mindy’s farm, a huge avalanche of sweat brimroa
over his eyelids and threatened to deluge him. But there was i
sweat at all. And above his head, a dazzling beam of light cai
caded over him and irradiated his soul - fried it up so sweet.*
that he recognised his Mission at once. To enlighten the Head
once and for-all with a music so free, so profound, so full fl
light that every great mind would be drawn to rock’n’roll an
every great rock’n’roller would become enlightened. It was i

mass barter system that could shore up the world with
■ m nation of rock heroes and enlightenment.

Rolf, today was a new beginning. He had come to record
.'ters, but he now remained in Switzerland, himself a
And his quickly rising spirit looked to his wife, Gille,

. > he did see the Goddess. For Rolf, Gille Letmann had
e his Sternmadchen, or Starmaiden. And in his new state
had never looked so odd nor so beautiful as the way
a ed it now. He could see forever. The thrill of creativity
l trough him like 10,000 watts of clear white light. To be an
* To create in this constant bath of light. This was every-
¥ He thought of Tim, on the run from everyone. Brian, four
r* n prison yet still uncorrupted, Sergius’ poetic idealism in
m untain home, the fabulous Moebius strip that Walti had
bed for the 7Up album. Man, he should stay and record the
: he scene... Rolf lay and watched the idea take shape in his
r 1 1 was just as Brian had said earlier: they were all Cosmic
it ers. Rolf shivered with a delight that all-enveloped him
pushed him clear through the roof. He saw a new record
r .ailed Kosmische Musik. It would be the record-label of
.'^smic Couriers - purveyors of all-things pioneeringly
Kual: an Enlightening rock’n’roll Trance-trip.
hs he lay Delighted in his room, Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser’s mind
k :a great lights above all of his artist and musician friends,
i one knew what was the Best way. He alone would Do It.
d Do It Right. Ha. Bern had been far too chaotic. He had
: “ Tim Leary too much leeway and it had interfered with the
i k trip. He must learn from this for next time. Shit, Brian
rritt had come to Berlin on three different occasions to try to
le in on the mix. Rolf had even had to spike Brian’s coffee
keep him away from his beloved 7Up. But not any more,
cn now on, the Kaiser would always be in Complete Con-
And as the dawn sun peered over the window sill, It shone
on a changed man...

rd Krishna Von Goloka & Wegmuller's Tarot

: new R-U Kaiser was soon hard at work recording the work
^ergius Golowin & Walter Wegmuller. In his new Kosmis-

che Empire, Kaiser saw Leary’s 7Up as the first release of t ■
brand new Visionary Record-label. But the Kaiser wol I
record every mage on every hill if necessary. Golowin’s L c
Krishna Von Goloka and Wegmuller’s epic Tarot would be * r
second and third releases respectively. Everyone in Gerrm. y\
was intrigued by this weird temporary Swiss scene. But R<
Ulrich Kaiser had decided that there should be no more ga h]
vanting around the Swiss hills trying to record elusive myst:. J
From Timothy Leary, he had learned that Control of the situ >1
tion was everything. And from now on, all Kosmische Ml* u
would be made in the safe hands of Dieter Dierks, at his stu^ m
in Stommeln near Cologne in W. Germany.

At first, Ash Ra Tempel began the project with Walter Wegl
muller in Switzerland, whilst Sergius Golowin flew to DieiJ
Dierks’ studio where he was backed by Kaiser’s cosmic OM
supergroup: Wallenstein’s Jurgen Dollase & Jerry Berkers. t r
cosmic folk duo Witthuser & Westrupp, and Klaus Schultze, v. r J
was involved (as usual) in all of the projects. The sessions for L i\
Krishna Von Goloka were incredible. And soon a middle-aged e v-
MP had made one of the finest Cosmic rock LPs of all time, aim
with only three tracks on the whole album. Klaus Schultze YM
been persuaded back on to the drums at last, and for the whole c#1
Side 2, the mystical 19-minute dance called “Die Hoclw.d
(High-time)”, there is a middle-European Ur-pagan rumble th M |
sounds as though Klaus is missing his beloved synthesizers, so hd
has attempted to copy their sound using his drums.

But back in Switzerland, the Wegmuller/Ash Ra Tempt
Tarot project had got extremely large and unwieldy. It was nov
a double album in length after Walter Wegmuller had sudden i
decided, in a fever of activity, to write lyrics concerning all 21
major arcana of the Tarot. The Kaiser was delighted by the ide.
and suggested that Tarot should come in a lavish package in th.
spirit of the early Ohr releases. But Wegmuller was way ahea^
of him, years ahead in fact. For the previous five years, since
1968, Walter Wegmuller had been painstakingly painting a
brand new set of 78 Tarot cards. He was a gypsy like Golowin.
a street trader, a diviner, and an artist who lived by his wits anc
his daily output.

Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser was more than impressed - this thor-

che Empire, Kaiser saw Leary’s 7Up as the first release of t ■
brand new Visionary Record-label. But the Kaiser wol M
record every mage on every hill if necessary. Golowin’s L c
Krishna Von Goloka and Wegmuller’s epic Tarot would be * r
second and third releases respectively. Everyone in Gerrm. y\
was intrigued by this weird temporary Swiss scene. But R< H
Ulrich Kaiser had decided that there should be no more ga h
vanting around the Swiss hills trying to record elusive myst:. J
From Timothy Leary, he had learned that Control of the situ A
tion was everything. And from now on, all Kosmische Ml* k]
would be made in the safe hands of Dieter Dierks, at his stu^ m
in Stommeln near Cologne in W. Germany.

At first, Ash Ra Tempel began the project with Walter Wegl
muller in Switzerland, whilst Sergius Golowin flew to Die™
Dierks’ studio where he was backed by Kaiser’s cosmic Ofcd
supergroup: Wallenstein’s Jurgen Dollase & Jerry Berkers. : r
cosmic folk duo Witthuser & Westrupp, and Klaus Schultze, v. r d
was involved (as usual) in all of the projects. The sessions for L i\
Krishna Von Goloka were incredible. And soon a middle-aged e v-
MP had made one of the finest Cosmic rock LPs of all time, and
with only three tracks on the whole album. Klaus Schultze YM
been persuaded back on to the drums at last, and for the whole c#1
Side 2, the mystical 19-minute dance called “Die Hoch-/.d
(High-time)”, there is a middle-European Ur-pagan rumble th M
sounds as though Klaus is missing his beloved synthesizers, so htr
has attempted to copy their sound using his drums.

Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser was more than impressed - this thor-

hness, he decided, must become the Cosmic Couriers’

. He was used to his idealistic drug-fuelled rock’n’rollers,
nere was something brand new. Knowledge and truth. Cer-
y. there was deep Intuitive wisdom, but here it was all
^ed up by scholarly learning and years of thorough practice
he Occult. Golowin and Wegmuller had spent much of the
on an Odyssey around Switzerland, Southern Germany
the South of France, collecting the myths, legends and tra-
ns of other gypsies they had met. Their adventures and dis-
eries had all been published in one of Golowin’s books Die
des Tarot (The World of Tarot).

The Golowin sessions finished, Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser had
her Wegmuller and Ash Ra Tempel flown to Germany to
n new work for the Tarot project at Dieter Dierks’ studio,
new double-LP format would require far more light and
if it was to work over two full albums, so Kaiser aug-
:ed the three-piece Ash Ra Tempel with many of the musi-
from the recent success of the Golowin sessions. Hartmut
e. Klaus Schultze and Manuel Gottsching were now joined
Walter Westrupp, playing his usual 10 or so different instru-
tts, plus Wallenstein’s Jurgen Dollase and Jerry Berkers. But
:: me, they brought their drummer Harald Grosskopf in order
pve Klaus Schultze more time for his beloved synthesizers.
Tarot was an enormous artistic success. Introduced by
er Dierks in a high vaudeville style, the music ranged so far
>o wide that it is impossible to grasp a description in words.

the Lou Reed street riffing of “Der Herrscher (The
peror)” to the Kosmische frenzy that covers all of Side 4,
vt is the funkiest record ever played by white boys. And it’s
funk that transcends the way early Funkadelic does - great
filing wa-riffs, multiple percussion, howling guitars and a
sity of sound that is a jungle of rhythms. And all of this in its
beautiful box, with detailed information and the full colour set
all 78 brand new Tarot cards as painted by Walter Wegmuller.

"he Coming of Kosmische Musik

i his vision, The Kaiser had the Kosmische Musik trip all sort-
: >ut. This new label was only for the mages, and that was the

way it must be. But the exciting and freaky Ash Ra Ten :
were disappointed. During the Tarot sessions, they had rea r
ed a brand new album called Join Inn and wanted to release
on the Cosmic Couriers label. The music was like old tin
with Klaus Schultze playing wild drums on the 20 mir.
freeform freakout they called “Freak’n’Roll”. Its wild undL
ing rifling was unlike any previous Ash Ra Tempel piece - c
and audible yet barely more understandable for all that. On S
2, “Jenseits (The Other World)” was a typically low-key me
tation, but this time with Manuel Gottsching’s girlfriend, r
Muller, relating the story of 7Up and just how affected thev r
all been by the experience. But Kaiser wanted the rock rec( *
to remain as Ohr releases - he had re-shaped both Pilz Rec< r
and Ohr Records so much by now that they were in dange'
becoming merely vehicles of what outsiders saw as his spc
tacular whimsy. And so Join Inn got its Ohr release.

But Ash Ra Tempel was not in any way an average gr< .
They had been buffeted all over the place by the enormi:
this mythical saga. They had followed Kaiser on his dream n
sion and if he was back home and all in one piece now, the\ c
tainly were Not. One night in concert, as the hurricane of so.
unfolded before them on stage, Klaus Schultze and Mar
Gottsching were slowly aware that Hartmut Enke was in a ir.
far-out state. He had stopped playing his mighty Gibson bi
and was just standing on the stage with his arms outstretche:
an attitude of sheer bliss. When they came off stage that nil •
Enke told them that the music was so wonderful he felt no m i
need to play. Many years later, Manuel Gottsching wc
explain this by saying simply: “He got very involved in
Timothy Leary philosophy.”

Now Ash Ra Tempel fell to pieces completely. When K
Schultze and Hartmut Enke decided upon solo careers, Mar
Gottsching found himself adrift with no rudder. He immer
himself in the then current LSD-fuelled weekend breakout*
the Dierks Studio - hours and hours of music was record
under the direction of R-U Kaiser and Gille Letmann, ir
Gottsching finally decided that the only way to maintain
sanity was to quit this lifestyle and to continue as Ash Ra !.
pel with Rosi Muller. With no new finished projects, R<

h Kaiser bided his time and filled the void of Cosmic
er releases with an extremely Un-cosmic live LP from
-ser & Westrupp.

s Schultze's Cyborg- An Oasis amidst Chaos

e Cosmic Couriers trip accelerated, R-U Kaiser’s vision
-x)n appeared to become out of control. Already disliked
mv of his musicians for being too manipulative, and even
ibed by an old friend as being like the 1930s screen baddie
Lorre, Kaiser was now so sure of the Righteousness of his
feat he began to act as though he were invincible. With an
f awesome presumptuousness, he invited Brian Barritt to
r:) Berlin as a paid Psy-Phi Advisor for the Cosmic Coun¬
sel.*

Berlin, Barritt was told to swing Tangerine Dream away
Edgar Froese’s obsession with Surrealism and angle their
: towards Psy-Phi. Kaiser also told Barritt that Wallen-
- ere not cosmic enough, and they too would have to
je Ash Ra Tempel was the third band on the Kaiser/Bar-

■ out with Hartmut Enke already too out of his mind with
F >rns and LSD, this proved impossible.

id -o it was left to Klaus Schultze to hold up the Kosmis-
hg. Like Florian Fricke, Schultze could not be manipulat-
Kaiser and was all the more respected for this. Though his
- o LP Irrlicht had been a disastrous commercial flop,
s Schultze retained in his trip such personal Clarity &

■ that R-U Kaiser suggested that Schultze’s first solo
: or the Cosmic Couriers label should be a double-LP.

Cyborg was bom - a pulsing undulating landscape of
-achines and synthesizers. Four epic barely changing
covered the sides of this huge 90 minute album,

t - chapter entitled “The Kaiser” in Brian Barritt’s forthcoming LSD jour-
f MO AD OF EXCESS. It describes in great personal detail the psychological
4the Cosmic Courier trip as applied to rock ’n ’roll by Leary through Barritt.
v* h ith T. Dream and Wallenstein, Brian Barritt appears to have taken on a
ucvnsky type of role, interpreting Leary better than Leary himself and work-
** ie Id therefore gaining a better overview of the system and how it worked on

“Synphara”, “Conphara”, “Chromengel” and “Neurone .
sang”. Suddenly, a whole new kind of music had appearec .
from nowhere. It was not atonal, neither was it cacophor 4
And this unutterably simple space music was topped by a n
little cosmic conceit from Kaiser: on the front sleeve of C 1
stood the pretty hippy Klaus Schultze, his face looking up fl
the middle distance, and framed in a dazzling and case a.
white light mirroring perfectly Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser’s Vis
back at Mindy’s farm.

Of Desperation, The Cosmic Jokers are Born...

The dissolution of Ash Ra Tempel proved too much for p* 1
Hartmut Enke. Their former leader never got any other pn
together and nothing would be heard of him afterwards. Mrj
while, the weekend acid raves at Stommeln continued in
gear, and the Dierks studio was an incessant orgified Lear 1
X-perience. With Brian Barritt and his partner Liz Elliot:
full patrol, Kaiser and Gille Letmann put all their bands throv.
their cosmic paces. Wallenstein were by now far better thi
their recent and ultra stodgy Mother Universe LP on 1
Records. But compared to the other Cosmic Couriers relea^
they would always remain an extremely stuffy proposit .
however cosmic they got. Brian Barritt attempted to add p
phi to Tangerine Dream, who were naturally extending the
boundaries from the first three Ohr LPs. But really, non t
could add More Psy-Phi to T. Dream.

Control. It was close to the end of 1972 and R-U Kaiser r t
wrestled control of almost everything. But it was still n
enough. After those first three Cosmic Couriers releases, d
Trip had been diminished, compromised. His Tangerine Dre.
plans had soon lain in ruins when Edgar Froese refused to
The Kaiser release their forthcoming LP Atem on the Kosn
che Musik label. Not surprisingly, T. Dream begrudged ha\
Kaiser’s ideas thrust upon them, and reacted furiously, insist:
that they remain on the Ohr label. To add further insult, Ka: -
had licensed Atem to the British Polydor label without e\ <
asking the group.

But R-U Kaiser kept dreaming. If only he could construe

•t from the players already involved - those contributors to
Ira three classic LPs. Kaiser never doubted their musician-
l 'heir allegiance to the Trip Itself, or their integrity.

; T, as the man with the Vision, was he really getting the
m : leage out of the Cosmic Couriers that it deserved?

>). He thought not...

tad then, as Johnny Rotten would later write of the Sex

:* v

‘ kit of all shambolic glory, something lent itself to chaos.”
t i Divine instant, born more out of necessity and despera-
kan true vision, Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser decided to sell his
n. .ms out and formed The Cosmic Jokers...

first Cosmic Jokers album is sheer genius But...

- puppet Krautrock supergroup - the first and only one of
Bad. This was clear from the day Manuel Gottsching
l. : into a Berlin record store and heard a cosmic jam-ses-
that he had played on only one month before blasting over
oeakers.

B hat record is this?” he asked. Oh, it’s The Cosmic Jokers
Manuel looked at his own photograph on the back sleeve, a
•.nown standard publicity pic., and got very pissed off.
. ■'•een paid only a session fee for the recording, yet here
Rolf Kaiser getting free mileage out of his credibility and
r • y as Ash Ra Tempel’s guitarist. There were also pictures
brgen & Harald from Wallenstein, and a shot of Dieter
v>. who probably wouldn’t mind. But when Manuel saw
:4oio of Klaus Schultze on the sleeve, he knew there was
g to be trouble. Klaus already barely tolerated Rolf Kaiser
l» he was gonna get him for sure. Manuel wondered about
to approach the situation. After all, the LP was fucking
m*k - two side long phasetone freakouts that sounded like
rented Ash Ra Tempel. It had all their contemporaries
■ > beaten. Like a whole album of Funkadelic’s cosmic
I rm “Maggot Brain” - it went all the way and just didn’t
i ff. No vocals apart from one Brian Barritt spoken cosmic
Fjection, “Galaxy Of Fallon to Telepath 1”. Manuel
w ning was almost broke and felt very used. But he decid-

ed to wait and see how it all unfolded before taking furthfl
action...

The Cosmic Jokers was the ultimate cosmic trip with R I
Kaiser as the Dhiagilev, the choreographer, the Ur-McLaren d
the band. Now in complete control, he would edit the houn* d
Kosmische freakouts into semi-coherent tracts of sound, a -I
vocals, or use vocals already found on the tracks. He wo- I
release these albums in a coherent package, a ridiculous ^ \
crass marriage of the Spiritual and the supermarket. And 'i
would no longer have to listen to these musicians’ complain:*
It was his Trip. Well, his and the Starmaiden’s. They com
with Dieter Dierks’ consent, put loads of stuff together -
fall-out from the Leary scene had been one long beautiful orrj
of Creation & Magic. If it was created on a higher plane, tbej
they were just the people to rationalise it into palatable listen
able Sonic Wisdom...

Jamming Good with Rolf & Gille

But with the success of The Cosmic Jokers , Rolf & Gille soai
realised that they had a fabulous trip within their grasp, i
they began to release more of the acid-jams that had come c4
of Dierks’ studio. A second Cosmic Jokers’ LP was released
called Galactic Supermarket , and it was another funky 2 x 21
minute Kosmische mother-fucking wa-phase classic, and tha
time full of Jurgen Dollase’s great Mellotron swirls. The slee
of the first LP had been in Peter Geitner’s Ad-man Enlighten
ment style, very much like Todd Rundgren’s first Utor I
sleeve. For Galactic Supermarket , Geitner outdid himself v. :r
a pyramid and mandala affair that could have been sell:"|
washing powder. It was a classic artform that mirrored tin
whole Kaiser & Letmann Cheap New-age Fix.

Sci-Fi Party * soon followed - a Kosmische Musik samples
with tracks from previous releases combined and re-editel
with new pieces like Brian Barritt’s spoken word “The Elec¬
tronic Scene”, in which he explained how the Leary Mor \
greatest discovery of all during the 7Up sessions was the syd
thesizer, and how he was drawn to Berlin by the promise d
working in this field. On the front sleeve, Planet Rolf & Sta*

lien Gille beamed out like cosmic game show hosts whilst
kr—ieath, their star team of satellites also emitted generic
N city pic. stares in varying stages of grinning intensity: Tim
r*. w ith his headphones, cutesy Klaus in his headphones and
the silver headphones became standard Cosmic Courier
r rm after a while). Dieter Smiling Dierks, the two Wallen-
■ ceezers, Rosi I’m with Manuel Muller, and Manuel
k-* s Kosmische’ for totally Skint? Gottsching.

Kod the torture never stopped. The Kaiser did a deal with
be»> magazine and out came The Cosmic Jokers’ fourth
in Planeten Sit-In as a quadrophonic demonstration
ord! This was an album of shape-shifting collage, achieving
s organic but similar effect as the first two LPs. This time
} 'hared the credit with the Starmaiden and still there
eared those psychotically twee smiling photographs on the
k f the sleeve. The records were all wildly uplifting and
ctacularly trippy, but the musicians were getting hungrier
lungrier and more pissed off every day. Manuel Gottsching
^een a Kaiser apologist at first, but when the Gilles
hiff LP appeared, it finally broke the musician’s enor-
bs dam of patience. Here was the final indignity - the Cos-
Jokers were now backing band on the Starmaiden’s
. vguide! Gilles Zeitschiff (Gille’s Timeship) was yet anoth-
‘nlliant LP in a brilliant career now in freefall. The musi-
*' had all looked the other way when Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser had
cht a hundred blow-up armchairs to support the army of
:.gn journalists whom he flew in for the 7Up release. And
had given up food for the free LSD and shelter of Dieter
fis’ studio. But now they realised that Rolf & Gille were

■r how Rolf& Gille had, by this time, dumped all attempts to translate the Leary
: Psy-Phi”, going for the synonym “Sci-fi” rather than articulately & coher-
mnempting to provide a catchy German equivalent. Throughout the Krautrock
* menon, the Germans failed to slangify their own language, preferring to use the
encoded English forms such as “Love is Peace ” and “Make Love Not War”,
r.en using expletives such as “Fuck”, “Motherfucker”, “Cool”, etc. But this is
i *allure on the part of the German artists, merely a reflection of just how strong-
r lunate Meaning in rock 'n 'roll is discovered not in the words, but only in the jux-
mnon of those words with the music AND the balance of effects and studio
within the track. This is so important in rock’n’roll that words of an almost
unely bland nature can be elevated to the status of a devotional hymn by giving
- nt> to a Joe Meek!

way off the rails and had forgotten about them. Some of the
musicians attempted to get their contracts with Kaiser nullified,
and there soon appeared articles in Der Spiegel and Der Welt-
woch claiming that members of the Timothy Leary Mob wenc
in cahoots with R-U Kaiser to pervert the lives of young musi¬
cians with LSD and orgiastic goings-on.

Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser’s scene came crashing immediate.)
down. His Kosmische Musik label had been a huge artistic sue
cess so far, and groups such as Mythos and Popol Vuh had made
spectacular albums for the label. But the axis which centred
around the Cosmic Couriers was no longer firm, in fact it was m
ruins. And in The Road of Excess, Brian Barritt writes: .. thi
last thing I heard of Rolf & Gille they were on the run.”

With the Leary Mob’s involvement, the German cours
immediately voided all of Kaiser’s contracts and Kosmische
Musik came to an end. Though the Cosmic Jokers’ soap ope'j
had eclipsed the other LPs in the catalogue, 17 albums had beer
released on the label and almost all of them were classics ol
their kind. Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser’s dream had been corre.L
despite his lopsided way of pursuing its realisation. And witr r
the Great Scheme of the Krautrock Dream, 20 years later is
April 1995 (Common Era) as I write this final chapter of re
KRAUTROCKSAMPLER , Kaiser should be forgiven and e\ cm
made a hero for his misguided but Visionary zeal, for he (tend
porarily) forced music beyond the Canopy of Earth and far: r
out into the Stars.

.ppendix:
KrautrockTop 50

«* of these records are currently available on CD, and all are on the list
f re-issued. Of course, this list is not exhaustive and is based on the
- that I personally know and love. Asterisks denote the easiest to get
f >ou are starting from scratch with Krautrock. And if I missed your
nte one out, well excuse me.

AMON OUULI - Paradieswarts Duiil(Ohr)

Re-issued on Captain Trip Records adding the Ohr45 PARAMECHANICAL
.VORLD/ETERNAL FLOW.

AMON DUULII - Phallus Dei (Liberty/UA)

Re-issued on Mantra Records

DN DUUL II - Yeti (Liberty/UA)*
a e-issued on Mantra Records

DN DUUL II - Carnival In Babylon (UA)
s e-issued on Mantra Records

DIM DUUL II - Wolf City (UA)

= e-issued on Mantra Records

I RA TEMPEL - Ash Ra Tempel (Ohr)*

= e-issued on Spaiax Records

t RA TEMPEL - Schwingungen (Ohr)

-e-issued on Spaiax Records

l RA TEMPEL & TIMOTHY LEARY - 7Up (Kosmische Musik)

-•i ssued on Spaiax Records

9 ASH RA TEMPEL - Join Inn (Ohr)

Re-issued on Spalax Records

10 CAN - Monster Movie (UA)*

Re-issued on Spoon Records

11. CAN - Soundtracks (UA)

Re-issued on Spoon Records

12 CAN - Tago Mago (UA)

Re-issued on Spoon Records

13 CAN - Ege Bamyasi (UA)

Re-issued on Spoon Records

14. CAN - Delay (Spoon)

Originally issued and still available on Spoon Records

15 CLUSTER II (Brain)

Re-issued on Spalax Records

16 CLUSTER -Zuckerzeit (Brain)*

Re-issued on Spalax Records

17 CLUSTER - Sowiesoso (Sky)

Re-issued on Sky Records

18 TONY CONRAD w/ FAUST - Outside the Dream Syndicate

(Caroline)

Re-issued by Table of the Elements Records

19. COSMIC JOKERS (Kosmische Musik)*

Re-issued on Spalax Records

20. COSMIC JOKERS - Galactic Supermarket (Kosmische Musik)

Re-issued on Spalax Records

21 COSMIC JOKERS - Planeten Sit-In (Kosmische Musik/

Hobby Magazine)

Re-issued on Spalax Records

22 COSMIC JOKERS - Sci-Fi Party (Kosmische Musik)

Re-issued on Spalax Records

23 COSMIC JOKERS & STERNMADCHEN - Gilles Zeitschiff

(Kosmische Musik)

Re-issued on Spalax Records

24. FAUST (Polydor)

Frustratingly available on a mid-price Japanese Polydor CD, which imp. ■
here for around £20(!.) Find originals in any provincial record shop for r -
price of a new vinyl LP. I bought two in Nottingham for £8 each (Augus -
1994CE) and one in Caine, Wessex for £12 (April 1995CE), so don't fai r
inflated prices.

The ultimate display of the Krautrock
aesthetic: a German Velvet
Underground compilation in a fake
Roger Dean Yes-style sleeve.

khausen's Hymnen -a divine
' age of German experimentalism
s supercharged influences of
€ West Coast rock'n'roll.

abulous

agically

corded

: ree-

sSchultze's
n &super-
sticfree-
* group in

gerine

am in its

ordinary
nation -
rFroese,
s Schultze
irad

ritzier in

Tangerine Dream’s greatestwork.
Note the ultra-rare free balloon on
Electronic Meditation (Richard
Gravett Collection) and the 1972
freakout45 Ultima Thule.

Tangerine Dream Electronic
Meditation (with balloon)

Tangerine Dream Alpha Centauri

Tangerine Dream Zeit
Tangerine Dream Atem

Tangerine Dream Ultima Thule 45

Zlear/lst
t So Far

Faust's greatest work.

Faust is pronounced "Fowst",
:o rhyme with "cow".)

Faust The Faust Tapes (back cover)

Faust IV

Tony Conrad & Faust Outside the
Dream Syndicate

The greatest work of Amon Diiiil I:
Psychedelic Underground
Collapsing (gatefold)

Disaster (gatefold)

Paradieswarts Duul

The Neu! Family including Cluster,
La Diisseldorf & Harmonia.

(Neu is pronounced "Noy",
to rhyme with "toy".)

Neu Neu!

Harmonia Musik Von Harmonia

Neu Neu2
Neu Neu 75
Harmonia Deluxe

r Cluster 1
r Cluster 2
Dusseldorf La Diisseldorf

Cluster Zuckerzeit (back sleeve)
Cluster Sowiesoso
La Dusseldorf Viva

These are Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser's early
mage recordings, etc., when
everything was still Sweetness &
Light.

Ash Ra Tempel & Timothy Leary 7Up

(reissue)

Sergius Golowin Lord Krishna Von
Goloka

Walter Wegmuller Tare:
Klaus Schultze Cyborg

Popol Vuh Einjager & S-

Here are the 5 classic Cosmic
Jokers LPs that destroyed R-U
Kaiser's career.

Cosmic Jokers
Galactic Supermarket

Cosmic Jokers Sci-Fi Party

Cosmic Jokers Planeten Sit-in

Cosmic Jokers &Starmaiden Gilles
Zeitschiff

Ash Ra Tempel Ash Ra Tempel
Ash Ra Tempel Schwingungen

The first 4 Ash Ra Tempel LPs are unequivocal to-the-Moooon! genius. Above: Klaus
Schultze fucked in lippy, the tragic Hartmut Enke before the Fall, and Manuel Gottschir;
the underground hero Guitar-god of all time.

Opposite:The first 4 Can LPs are faultless. Buy them all. Bottom: Can on stage.

Ash-Ra Tempel & Timothy Leary 7Up
Ash-Ra Tempel J 0//7 Inn

Julian Cope in Cologne, Germany, discussing Krautrock with Spexjournalists on Augus
15th, 1995 (Common Era).

HEAD HERITAGE aims to alert all the Heads (the geniuses, the
psychos,the neurotics,the culturally dispossessed) to anytruh
lost or shadowy knowledge or Wisdom of our recent & ancient
past This Krautrocksampler was an ideal place to start- and w
expectthatthe Trip will be a real slow-burner...

Dorian & Julian Cope (Ma & Pa Excellence)

*AUST - So Far (Polydor)

SO FAR is in the same Japanese inflationary hole as the clear album.
While you're waiting, check out those provincial record shops. Stay far
away from Notting Hill Record & Tape Exchange, though. My friend
Psychedelic Paul got a copy of NEU 2 in Doncaster for £2 last November
•1994CE), so let's get down and get looking.

P AUST - The Faust Tapes (Virgin)

Re-issued on Recommended Records.

*AUST - /V (Virgin)*

Brilliantly re-issued on Virgin Records at mid-price in original packaging.

SERGIUS GOLOWIN - Lord Krishna Von Goloka (Kosmische Musik)
Still unavailable at the time of going to press (Summer 1995CE)

GURU GURU - U.F.O. (Ohr)

Re-issued on ZYX Records.

h ARMONIA - Musik von Harmonia (Brain)

Re-issued briefly by Brain Records, then withdrawn.

Currently available unofficially from Germanofon Records.

HARMONIA - Deluxe (Brain)*

Currently available unofficially from Germanofon Records.

KRAFTWERK (Vertigo)

KRAFTWERK in Britain was a double album combining the two original
records KRAFTWERK & KRAFTWERK 2. Both LPs are now currently
available separately, as originally intended, on Germanofon Records.

LA DUSSELDORF (Nova/Decca)

Currently unavailable on CD and hard to find on original. Maybe
Germanofon will re-issue it.

LA DUSSELDORF - Viva (Nova/Radar)

Currently unavailable. Lookout for old '80s CDs, this album is still available
cheaply (£8 -1995CE) if you strike lucky.

MOEBIUS & PLANK - Rastakrautpasta (Sky)

RASTAKRAUTPASTA has just been re-issued on a 2 for 1 single CD with
its inferior but still highly entertaining sequel MATERIAL.

NEU! (Brain)

Re-issued expensively on Germanofon Records

NEU! - Neu 2 (Bra\n)

Re-issued expensively on Germanofon Records

NEU! - Neu '75 (Brain)*

Re-issued expensively on Germanofon Records

POPOL VUH - Affenstunde (Liberty)

Popol Vuh's re-issue scene is up the wall right now. AFFENSTUNDE is
available on CD with the title track on IN DEN GARTEN PHAROAS as a
bonus, thereby rendering the awesome magic of ''Vuh" completely at
sea. Try calling Alan or Steve Freeman at Ultima Thule in Leicester. They'll
explain in detail without blowing your mind.

40 POPOL VUH - In den Garten Pharoas (Pilz)*

See note for AFFENSTUNDE

41 POPOL VUH - Einjager & Siebenjager (Kosmische Musik)

Re-issued on Spalax Records.

42. POPOL VUH - Hosianna Mantra (Kosmische Musik)

Re-issued on ZYX Records with original artwork. Beware the inferior
version on Spalax, which accidentally used deteriorating master tapes

43. TANGERINE DREAM - Electronic Meditation (Ohr)

Currently available on a cheap CD with unoriginal generic artwork art-*
(same at the following 3 LPs but in different colours) from Jive Electro
Throughout 1994 CE, on a book-signing tour through the Virgin
Megastores of Britain, I picked up between 10/20 of each one on sa e ^
gave them to friends everywhere. They don't look like much but the I Z
sound fabulous. Search them out - they're so unprepossessing tha: rr
people bleep right through 'em. Also available on Relativity Records r
original Reinhard Hippen packaging.

44 TANGERINE DREAM - Alpha Centauri (Ohr)*

See above note for ELECTRONIC MEDITATION

45 TANGERINE DREAM - Atem (Ohr)

See above note for ELECTRONIC MEDITATION

46 TANGERINE DREAM - Zeit (Ohr)

See above note for ELECTRONIC MEDITATION

47 KLAUS SCHULTZE - Irrlicht (Ohr)

Re-issued on Fnac Records.

48 KLAUS SCHULTZE - Black Dance (Brain/Caroline)

Re-issued on Brain Records.

49 WALTER WEGMULLER- Tarot (Kosmische Musik)*

Re-issued on Spalax Records in a box with Wegmuller's original Tar: t
paintings - the price is a ridiculous £50. Everyone I know is freakirg -
stupidity of this, especially with such a special Classic.

50 WITTHUSER & WESTRUPP - Trips & Traume (Ohr)

Re-issued on ZYX Records.

Many of these records will be unavailable in high street megastores, tb *

I know people at both Tower and Virgin who are stocking the stu '
claim that it is selling. If you have a problem, call Ultima Thule and
send you a list plus, I’m quite sure, tell you anything else you might» I
know. Here is their address and phone number:

THE ULTIMA THULE RECORD SHOP

1, Conduit Street

Leicester

LE2 OJN

(0116) 285 4545

Krautrocksampler in
review-top 50

AMON DUULI - Paradieswarts Duiil {O hr)

—A BAUER - vocals, harp & bongos
A '»ER BAUER-guitar & vocals
L 3 CH LEOPOLD - bass, piano & vocals
•C AM - guitar, bass & vocals
lHSl - flute & bongos
ESSER - guitar

L2E FILANDA-drums & vocals
KM-African drum

fcr'e s an album that scared me as a teen and I’d never even heard it. Every
- v. in the days when they were still just a record shop, I’d scour the
’rzm Mail Order list. This album was always included, and always it said
k "Paradies Warts Dliul”. I never even knew about Amon Duiil I! I’d
read it like mail order lingo, ie. “Machine Head Purple” and
lerpelin Holy”. This album reveals Amon Dliul as a reformed and holy
K n Behind the wall of distortion, Amon Duiil had two very beautiful
Rets in Ella and Rainer Bauer, but nobody could hear them until now. As
** e is Peace” fades in, this massive Teutonic folk-groove, which lasts all
Side 1, sounds like the 13th Floor Elevators’ Easter Everywhere period.
P ner “Slip Inside this House” that begins: “Once I got a hang up in the
. re-machine,” and proceeds to narrate with some clarity and a great lyri-
• beauty about how we have all come to clock-watch and so let life sweep
r ] M before we know it. Spiky acoustic guitars eventually pick out a par-
_&:arly un-bluesy and major-chord version of the “Purple Haze” riff,

Pc-re a key-change into the verse. Paradieswarts Diiiil was Amon Duul’s
Kim for Ohr Records, and their only recording other than the massive
IK' jam session that produced the three LPs Psychedelic Underground
Collapsing: Singvogel Ruckwarts & Co. (1970) and the posthu-

mous double-LP Disaster. Paradieswarts DiiiiT s packaging in one
Records’ rare single-sleeves suggests that this was not considered an-
release. But it is a fabulous record, and one which places Amon Du.i
new level. Whilst “Love is Peace” often sounds like a never-ending
plistic take on Traffic’s John Barleycorn Must Die, Side 2 of the albur
them descend to a mantric Velvetsy downer-trip called “Snow your th
Sun your open mouth”. And despite progressing so that they were she*
more able to keep time, they hadn’t lost the whole commune thang. In
ious configurations, many different musicians contribute to the alb
three songs. The last song is “Paramechanische Welt (Paramecha
World)”, a long unchanging 17 verse weepy. A stone classic. If you lo\ t :
plaintive darkness of Amon Diiiil II’s epic “Sandoz in the Rain” from
then I’m sure you will love this album.

Other Records: Because Amon Diiul I were conceived as a poh *
musical commune, only PARADIESWARTS DUUL, their fourth
attempted to even approximate contemporary rock idioms. Their <
releases were: PSYCHEDELIC UNDERGROUND (Metronome 19
COLLAPSING: SINGVOGEL RUCKWARTS & CO. (Metronome) an.
DISASTER double album (BASF 1972.) They are deadly rare and all
quality freakout recordings with beautiful gatefold sleeves.

IMPORTANT BEWARE NOTE: In the early '80s, Dave Anders
John Weinzierl, both formerly of Amon Diiiil II, formed a new Amon l
with no number after it. Remember that this is an entirely different s
based in North Wales (!) The LPs released were HA WK MEETS PENG
AIRS ON A SHOESTRING (Compilation) & MEETINGS WITH V \
MACHINES...

2 AMON DUUL II - Phallus Dei (Liberty)

JOHN WEINZIERL-guitar, bass & vocals
CHRIS KARRER - guitar, violin & vocals
FALK-ULRICH ROGNER-organ
DAVE ANDERSON-bass
RENATE KNAUP-vocals
SHRAT - bongos & vocals
PETER LEOPOLD-drums
DIETER SERFAS-drums
with

HOLGER TRULZSCH (Popol Vuh) - percussion
CHRISTIAN BURCHARD (Embryo) - vibes

This first statement from Amon Diiiil II caused ripples around Europe, i
least in the Ladbroke Grove offices of Clearwater Productions, a simili
communal arts scene which supported the early Hawkwind. Phallus D< J
packaging had a monolithic red and blue shimmering shake-appeal that M
not been seen since the formidable packaging of the Texan Intematioc |
Artists label, home of the 13th Floor Elevators and the Red Crayola,
music inside was a crazy mix of Middle-European rhythms, phonetic rru I

is that merely approximated rock’n’roll (and with disregard for any
accuracy), operatic screeching female voice like a truly-achieving
o Ono, plus violin, guitars and percussion percussion percussion all the
Two drummers and Schrat the bongo-player were augmented by
•^yo’s Christian Burchard on vibraphone and Holger Trulzsch from
>1 Vuh on yet more bongos.

At first the music is unfathomable. The chords sire ill-defined and the
fed is so cluttered as to present a jamming feel akin to their sister band
n Diiiil I. But it was just this ramshackle quality which would see
n Diiiil 11 into the ’70s as one of the only true creators of improvised
The LP opens with their now-standard “Kanaan”, a spectacular slab
Egyptian high-magic replete with the daunting mass of percussionists
:ch swarm across the horizons and conjure instant images of D.W.
■fiths’ early movie epic Intolerance. The only reference could be the
tp‘s “Colour Dreams”, an ancient Cameo-Parkway 45 from 1967, but
i is surely coincidence. Phallus Dei follows deep into Side 1 with “Dem
ten Schonen Wahren” and “Lucifers Ghilom”, which occupy a strange
y Roxy Music mood, though pre-dating Roxy (and probably inspiring
n, too. Check this and Can’s Monster Movie. No coincidence I’m sure),
r it’s the epic title track that most consumes the listener. “Phallus Dei”
>ers the whole of Side 2 in great daubs of hoe-downs, freakouts and
retimes brief pre-ambient soundscapes of sheer abandoned joy, as the
■ns disappear for minutes on end only to re-surface as the engineer
-:ses and fights to clear up the sound. Though the recording of Phallus
: gets pretty lo-fi at times, the LP conjures an ancientness comparable
> to Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures.

AMON DUULII - Yeti (Liberty)

fER LEOPOLD-drums
^AT- bongos & vocals
\ATE KNAUP - vocals & tambourine
WEINZIERL - guitar & vocals
- S KARRER - guitar, violin & vocals
.C-ULRICH ROGNER - organ
.E ANDERSON -bass

NER BAUER (Amon DCiiil I) - guitar & vocals
RICH LEOPOLD (Amon Diiiil I) - bass
'MAS KEYSERLING (Amon Diiiil I)-flute

Tamworth, Yeti was such a big LP that longhairs actually called each
sr “Yeti” as a greeting. It was only two years ago that my friend Doggen,
lself a fellow Midland Man, told me that his Nottingham mates had also
rrrefito each other as Yetis. Doggen is It) years younger than me but the
1 tradition remains. Such is the make-up of this classic Double-Album,
>sibly the Ur-Kraut album of All. And as such, this LP deserves a long
1 detailed sonic and psychic description:

a family, and Amon Diilil II is a happy commune again. The best, most lo’-
ing song is “Tables Are Turned”, a magical lilting percussive groo\;
copped from Traffic’s “Vagabond Virgin”. It’s not until the last song of the
album that Amon Diiiil II stretch into their usual electric trip out, and eve *
“Hawknose Harlequin” is noticeably shortened. Rumours abound that tf
track was meant to cover the whole side of an album. Carnival In Babyk i
is a very mysterious and elusive album, especially in context with its
muscular follow-up Wolf City.

5. AMON DUULII - Wolf City (United Artists)

JOHN WEINZIERL - guitar & vocals

CHRIS KARRER - guitar, violin, soprano sax & vocals

RENATE KNAUP-vocals

FALK-ULRICH ROGNER - organ & synthesizer

LOTHAR MEID - bass & vocals

PETER LEOPOLD - drums & FX

DANNY FICHELSCHER - drums, guitar & vocals

with

JIMMY JACKSON- organ
OLAF KUBLER-sax
ALGROMER-sitar

The fantasia of Amon Diilil II was never so prevalent as on Wolf City. Tbs
swept out of Carnival in Babylon into intricate progressive rock with o\ a
tones of Pavlov’s Dog and the Who. Sounds horrendopus but it’s tn>
beautiful. The opening song, “Surrounded By The Scars” is sheer bn
fiance, with Renate Knaup at her Yoko Ono operatic best. Many fin.
Renate’s screech too much, but I still have a crush on her from the Carni\ t
in Babylon sleeve back in 1972, so I’m a goner already and well past the
point of judgement. “Green Bubble Raincoated Man” is very Bowie-ish
the strident vocals and harmonies - though it soon slips into the family
wa-punk blitzo they were all so fond of. Especially the funny-boogie b
with huge over-recorded bass.

There’s no point in going through the whole album because it’s the be-
Amon Diilil II songs album there is. “Jailhouse Frog” is a true classic, b
1972, they were still using phasing and 1969 American garage riffs. Aw
right! Man, mon Diilil II used to be so organic, but now they’d become a
arranged and clever, all the stuff I should hate, but it’s still fantastic. Th
Faust piano bit on “Jailhouse Frog” is so cosmic, goes on so long and yet
doesn’t get boring because Amon Diilil II were an experimental band an.
had a remarkable sense of rhythm and time. The two epics of Side 2 are th.
title track and “Deutsch Nepal”, a huge sexy Krautrock Doo-wop wit*
vocals by the Funny Fuehrer. Once more, the Amon Diiul emphatic
Krautrock trip comes into operation. The riff is played by about 10 mus
cians, all locked in to a “Stand By Me” kind of chord sequence, though it
no more soully than Faust’s “It’s a Rainy Day”. Remember, this is the fir
Amon Diiiil II album of all real songs.

100

- ASH RA TEMPEL - First (Ohr)

pARTMUT ENKE - bass & electronics
klAUS SCHULTZE - drums & electronics
pUNUEL GOTTSCHING - guitar & electronics

Heat-haze harmonics begin “Amboss”, the opening side £ ntm ci n
Mu Tempel. Intense cymbals and frenzied rumbling ba- .. rvr

it, then it descends once more. It is the power-trio pi a ;.1 ii -
■ v nal force. When Klaus Schultze’s drumming comes in i.'' e hnce

■mutes, the thunder is highly charged and superfit, right or. Tr< K: _• - - ' n
hsh bash. Then it’s off on the wildest 20 minutes of freakout bl tzkr eg \t
point, everything breaks down into a guitar blaze of feedback fed
•rough FX for minutes on end, until the drums tear back in so crazii> and
■i viomes Larry Graham bass playing of the Swoopingest kind. Oh fuck
•an. this is the greatest Detroit-est trip of all time. Not a heavy metal
• viult but a methodical breaking down of all your senses until you are
pushed and insensible. And if Side 1 has pulverised you, then the 25
■mute “Traummaschine (Dream Machine)” lets you lie there in the after-
fcow and never disturbs you beyond the slightest disruption of Vibrations.
\A percussionless dreamscape of sounds cascades around the room, and a
•uling woman-voiced beauty fills the air. Then, rising out of the peace
cx: mes the guitar shimmer and finally the hollow congas of Klaus Schultze.
mmd the fuzz beauty of Manuel Gottsching’s guitar scythed all down in the
■tat rush through space. Then it’s off into yet another inspiring dimension
■ \sh Ra Tempel fly around the universe... Ash Ra Tempel is at its great¬
er when it’s impossible to work out what instrument makes which sound.

It’s one of the greatest rock’n’roll LPs ever made.

ASH RA TEMPEL - Schwingungen (Ohr)

PA^TMUT "INDRA ROGER" ENKE-guitar, bass, electronics
pANUEL GOTTSCHING - guitar, organ, electronics, choir
■Ci.FGANG MULLER - drums & vibes

UC~N L. - vocals, jaw-harp & percussion
■aTTHIAS WEHLER - alto sax
UL p OP-bongos

“Beware of Schwingungen !” That should be the large sticker on the front of
ail copies of this record. For it is dangerous to be casually introduced to
lomething that is life-changing, as I found out to my cost when first listen-
tog to this record. It all starts fairly simply and without any cause for alarm
- “Look at Your Sun” begins with a Doorsy lone groover guitar begins a
xdestrian blues, beautiful. Then the most crushed voice, a cross between
• hnny Rotten and Tiny Tim, preaches its way into the proceeds. God, it is
>fautiful - John L. repeats over and over, “We are all one, we are all one”,
-ntil a howling fuzztone solo guitar blows the whole one-chord “Signed
D C.” ringing-cymbals torture to an end. And then the most far out track of

101

all begins. This is called “Flower Must Die” and it is a free-rock giant th
transcends everything else in its field (there are no contenders.) As Wt
written before, PIL sounds like this. John L. was John Lydon in a previoi
incarnation. After a slow weird build, a frantic streamlined one-chor.
mantra kicks in and it’s like the Stooges’ Funhouse period but in a
Righteous Vision Zone that fucks them right off. Phasing tears at the who .
tracks as this Holy Racket crosses into Hyper-space and everything gets u
hyphenated just-for-the-sake-of-it. “Flowers Must Die”, man, it’s fuckc.
up. Over on Side 2, the title-track (“Vibrations”) begins poetically enough
with Wolfgang Muller’s epic and hugely reverbed vibraphone. Organ fade'
in and FX guitars, and time passes by. Finally, tom-toms roll and the deve
oping pace is built upon until that great eternal chord sequence finally mate
rialises — this is the one that Gottsching and Enke believed was the sound o*
heaven. They may have been right. And Schwingungen was a gift from the
Gods.

8 ASH RA TEMPEL & TIMOTHY LEARY - 7Up (Die Kosmische
Kuriere)

TIMOTHY LEARY-voice

BRIAN BARR ITT-voice

LIZ ELLIOTT-voice

BETTINAHOHLS-voice

PORTIA NKOMO- voice

MICKEY DUWE - voice & flute

HARTMUT "HAWK" ENKE-bass, guitar & electronics

MANUEL GOTTSCHING - guitar & electronics

STEVE A. SCHROYDER - organ & electronics

DIETMAR BURMEISTER - drums

TOMMY ENGEL-drums

DIETER DIERKS-synthesizer & Radio Downtown

In chaos it was conceived and in chaos it was recorded. Yet Dieter Dierks.
the great Aural Architect of the Cosmic Couriers, turned 7Up into a per¬
sonal triumph and a Kosmische dream. Opening like some other worldly
Pere Ubu performance, the greatness of Ash Ra Tempel burned so brightly
on 7Up that there is really nothing else like it. Hartmut Enke and Manuel
Gottsching had begun in the Steeplechase Blues Band and here returned to
their riffy roots. It can hardly be called a retro act, though, as the context of
music is everything. And with Dierks at the controls, even the New Kids on
the Block would have sounded psychedelic. 7Up is like a late night radio
show glimpsed through a shattered tuner where all but the most truly dan¬
gerous sounds have been allowed to stay, to drift and to dance around the
performers.

The charm of 7Up is the weird juxtaposition of Timothy Leary’s Mob,
and their desire to holler up a storm and the Kaiser’s gang, who are clearly
there to celebrate Leary the guru and LSD magician. That the Kaiser’s gang
win is clear, but not before Leary, Brian Barritt and the countless other

102

'ingers have squeezed every screwed-up sexual blech emotion out of them-
Nelves. The result is an extreme gem, a flash of hysterical white lightning,
md a pre-punk Technicolour yawn in the grandest of traditions. In typical
Ash Ra Tempel style, the record is divided into two pieces, “Space” and
"Time”. Within this, though, Timothy Leary’s ideas are allowed to free¬
flow and the two sides are therefore divided into mini-songs all segued
together. The highlight of Side 1 is “Power Drive”, a West Coast burn-up
that transcends any W. Coast music I ever did hear. Leary and Barritt pre-
Nent the greatest twin-vocal of all time, coming on like Jagger and Morrison
but too caught up in their own maelstrom to be anything less than Heralds
of the Punk-future still five years away.

9 ASH RA TEMPEL - Join Inn (Ohr)

HARTMUT ENKE - Gibson bass
MANUEL GOTTSCHING -guitar
KLAUS SCHULTZE-drums, synthesizers & electronics
ROSI MULLER-voice

"Freak’n’roll” fades in like it never started - just was always there from the
beginning of time, a dry wa-guitar freerock riff-out unlike any of the other
Ash Ra Tempel LPs, and not much like any other music. Yes, there are
bluesy riff but none of them have a blues context. Manuel Gottsching’s gui¬
tar is so confident that he sometimes drops down to a simple major chord
groove, whilst the Hawk pushes that round woody bass into strange over¬
lapping rumbling melody. And it’s the return of Klaus Schultze on drums
which propels “Freak’n’roll” to its height. No-one but Klaus has the abili¬
ty to transcend rock’n’roll in such an on-the-beat non-groove-y way and
still send sparks of light into the cosmos as he does it. “Freak’n’roll” is so
egoless that it even works at a quiet volume as meditational music. Themes
rise from the high tempo pulse beat, then are carried along the muscles of
the song into the main area where the riff actually becomes real and expres¬
sionist for just long enough before slipping back into the musical fabric of
the song. As usual with Ash Ra Tempel, the other side is an enormous drift
piece called “Jenseits (The Next World)”, a beautiful Klaus Schultze med¬
itation of haunting synthesizer chords over which Rosi Muller tells the
story of the Cosmic Couriers’ meeting with Timothy Leary. Gradually, the
pulsing guitar becomes increasingly intense and turbulent, but Rosi never
sounds less than freaked out. Essentially, “Jenseits” is a precursor to Klaus
Schultze’s later spacey minor-key grooves. Unfortunately, this was the last
Ash Ra Tempel album in its particular ‘series’.

Other Records: After JOIN INN, Manuel Gottsching took over the Ash
Ra Tempel mantle alone. The follow-up LP STARRING ROSI was an entire¬
ly different direction, more accessible and very commercially successful I
find it of no use at all after what Ash Ra Tempel had come to represent, but
at least Gottsching was still alive. A multi-layered multi-tracked guitar
album called INVENTIONS FOR ELECTRIC GUITAR followed. This is

103

easy listening and of no great consequence, though it was probably sotm
kind of achievement in the mid- ’70s.

10. CAN - Monster Movie (Music Factory/UA)

MALCOLM MOONEY-vocals
HOLGER CZU KAY-bass
MICHAEL KAROLI-guitar
JAKI LEIBEZEIT-drums
IRMIN SCHMIDT-keyboards

Can’s first LP opened like the Velvet’s “European Son”, all inverted bass
riffs, fast strummed one chord rhythm guitar and tom-tom drumming over
a blanket of single note organ noise. But “Father Cannot Yell” is a great
song and a structured well-arranged constant builder. It is their black vocal¬
ist Malcolm Mooney who imprinted himself most heavily on Monster
Movie , and from almost the first moment, he is in charge. Mooney sings in
a Hendrix style, announcing and making pronouncements in a cool spoken
way and, most clearly, making no effort to be coherent as his is a German
audience. Mooney’s vocals slide into Universal Man speak at times as he
grunts, whinnies and beats the air to get the right effect. “Mary Mary, Quite
Contrary” follows next, a “Venus in Furs” meets Love’s “Signed D.C.”, the
whole thing having a strange blues atmosphere, though the violin of
Michael Karoli is Cale-ing to the Nth degree. Side 1 finishes with Can's
greatest rock’n’roll song ever, “Outside Your Door”. Two to three years
after this song, Roxy Music’s “Remake/Remodel” and “Editions of You"
were later cut from the very same rock. The whole of Side 2 is taken up b>
the live concert track “You Doo Right”, an extremely devotional song in
which Malcolm Mooney addresses his current living situation as a black
American in Germany. It is the steady anchor of Holger Czukay’s bas>
which keeps this whole song together over its 20 minute run, leaving space
for Michael Karoli and Irmin Schmidt to edge in and out of major and
minor keys as the vocal’s lilt suggests. This is a masterful LP.

11. CAN - Soundtracks (United Artists)

MALCOLM MOONEYor
DAMO SUZUKI-vocals
HOLGER CZUKAY-bass
MICHAEL KAROLI-guitar
JAKI LEIBEZEIT-drums
IRMIN SCHMIDT-keyboards

Though an unofficial second album, Soundtracks works extremely well
because of its refusal to attempt to bring rock’n’roll dynamics to the struc¬
ture of the record. The vocal theme from “Deadlock” opens Soundtracb
with its wailing crying howling guitar themes which Damo Suzuki follow, >
melodically and melancholically, over a dramatic mid-tempo drurr

104

rhythm. “Tango Whiskyman” follows, another Deadlock piece with thun¬
derous rhythm propelling a sexy low-key groove as Damo sings the key¬
board/guitar theme once more. Then the instrumental “Deadlock” theme
piles in, a huge Cecil B. De Mille organ and drums tour de force link-piece.
"Don’t Turn the Light on, Leave Me Alone” was Damo Suzuki’s first Can
recording, though he does not sound pissed off and freaked out as he really
was. The song is rhythmically and acoustically close to Ege Bamyasi, with
the bluesy pulled acoustic of Michael Karoli. Side 1 finishes with Malcolm
Mooney’s “Soul Desert”. How different he is from Damo: a barely con¬
cealed on-the-edge freak, he grabs the music from the other members of
Can and directs it immediately into a blues strut like Syd Barrett’s
"Maisie”, chordless, insistent and utterly compulsive. Most of Side 2 is
taken up by the 14-minute driving beauty of “Mother Sky”, a Teutonic “LA
Woman” in a Funhouse Stooges vein. The mantric raga melody is sung by
Damo Suzuki over the droning bass of Holger Czukay. But there is plenty
of time for the most savage and howling guitar solos from Michael Karoli.
The late night urban-ness of “Mother Sky” is truly filmic and must have
worked superbly in its intended place on the soundtrack of Jerzy
Skolimovsky’s Deep End. “Mother Sky” is a long long moving thang, but
I'm still fascinated as to how it would have sounded with Malcolm Mooney
on vocals. Mooney is back again for the last song on the LP, a standard
called “She Brings the Rain”, a walking bass jazzer about a girl who brings
"magic mushrooms out of dreams.” No drums or dynamics, instead violin
and beautiful bell-tone bluesy guitar and the rarest of Can effects, dual¬
vocals, brings this strange album to a close.

12 CAN - TagoMago (UA)

HOLGER CZUKAY - bass, editor & engineer
MICHAEL KAROLI-guitars
jAKI LEIBEZEIT-drums
DAMO SUZUKI-vocals
RMIN SCHMIDT - keyboards

Once described as a kind of new Chamber Music, this Can allusion proba¬
bly best befits the opening track of their Tago Mago. “Paperhouse” is beau¬
tiful, elegant ensemble playing, the kind of perfect soundtrack for the film
Don’t Look Now. Damo’s melody is followed by Michael Karoli’s guitar,
and the driving watery drumming of Jaki Leibezeit is well to the fore. It is a
'torming and clear dual guitar blitz, even Television-like as Irmin Schmidt
keeps all keyboards out of the track and allows Michael Karoli the rare
opportunity to imagine himself part of the Jefferson Airplane. There’s a
beautiful coda, an indescribably jagged and beautiful thing.. .a rend in the
:ape and then it’s off into the vocals and drums of “Mushroom (Head)”.
Damo repeats one sullen phrase over and over, I think it’s “One-eyed soul
- Mushroom Head. One-eyed soul - Mushroom Head. I was bom. And I
'* as dead.” Over this repeats a beautiful guitar/organ motif as the dmms get
* ay down low. Low and clattery and almost imperceptible. “I’m gonna get

105

my kicks there, I’m gonna get my fix there,” the most brilliant rock’n’roll
lyrics ever. The side ends with the storm breaking, the lightning flashing
and the fading in of one of the most mysterious tracks ever. Search it out. I
can’t describe it. Damo’s vocals are backwards and beautiful. It’s a fucking
gorgeous thing. All of Side 2 is taken up by the monumental “Hallelujah”,
another heavy rhythmic thing where overdubbed percussion and sound-
effects soon take over from Damo - and Can get as close to world music as
they can get. “Hallelujah” is not an organic freakout as such. It is full of
edits and of different parts, but the themes that begin will always return.
And the greatest theme of all is Damo’s vocal refrain that kicks in midway
through the track. It’s a classic pop-hook and the guitar recognises the fact
immediately. At that moment, Can could be playing “Sally Go Round the
Roses”. The whole instrumental side of “Hallelujah” is so confident that it’s
like the Meters playing avant garde music.

“Aumgn” is just plain weirdness, like the early 1969 experiments of
Organisation, Amon Diiiil I and Kluster (sic.) It’s in these kinds of tracks
that all rock’n’roll, by reducing itself to the sum of the physical attributes of
the group, actually reaches heights of the group unconscious impossible by
merely rocking out for three hours. Irmin Schmidt intones in a huge voice
that just goes on & on & on, until a non-rhythmic drum bursts in, messes
about and finally careers off into percussion a go-go, and we’re into light-
speed. Side 4 of this epic monsterpiece begins with the strange screamer
called “Peking O”, an organ and vocal ritual blast that slowly elevates itself
out of the mire into a bossanova from an early drum-machine as Damo and
Irmin Schmidt freeform with vocal and e. piano craziness. The drum-
machine is switched off, speeds up, Damo speaks in streams of the most
humorous tongues. Oh, what the hell - it’s a gas. And all changes for the
wonderful album closer: “Bring Me Coffee or Tea” is a beautiful lilting,
ever building melodic groove - an amalgam of all Can’s greatest attributes,
the woody almost marimba-like bass of Holger Czukay, the clatter of
Leibezeit’s drums, the spindly Karoli guitar, the sexual devotion of Damo,
even Irmin Schmidt’s curiously egoless ability to not play a thing unless
he’s contributing. “Bring Me Coffee or Tea” is a song in which the forth¬
coming Ege Bamyasi sound is previewed, but still in its raw angry Tago
Mago state. This was their most ritually inspired album.

13. CAN - Ege Bamyasi (United Artists)

DAMO SUZUKI-vocal
HOLGER CZUKAY-e.bass

MICHAEL KAROLI - e.guitar, acoustic guitar, 12-string & shenai
JAKI LIEBEZEIT-drums

SCHMIDT - organ, e.piano, clavioline & steel guitar

Ege Bamyasi was the closest to a pop LP that Can ever got. That’s not to say
that it is pop, but there are at least clear cut songs with grooves of delightful
melody and moment, plus a teen-appeal that still leaves me gasping with
love for Damo Suzuki. Ege Bamyasi opens with the percussive rush of

' Pinch”, nine minutes of groove in which the whole group seems to stand
around the direction of Jaki Leibezeif s fury of drumming. Only Damo’s
vocal monologue edges out of the taut melee and one of the group hangs a
hook on his vocals with a retarded but ultra-catchy mechanical bird-whis¬
tle. “Sing Swan Song” follows in its devotional mid-tempo wake, like a fast
funeral barge rows by warriors, sculling to the music. Damo’s vocals are
breathily soaring and always his half-English sounding, half-unconscious
lyrical pronouncements end in the words “...Sing Swan Song” to give the
strong impression of something divine being lost. “One More Night” com¬
pletes Side l’s drum-led groove down a narrow alley where one chord is
enough for Damo to coo “One more Saturday night, one more suck o’ your
head,” over and over and over. Behind him, the most sexual ethereality
enfolds the listener, as Suicidey distantness sends him to sleep. The bed¬
room mood continues on to Side 2 with the pleading chorus of “Hey you,
you’re losing, you’re losing, you’re losing, you’re losing your Vitamin C.”
Again the drums clatter and bounce as Holger Czukay’s abrupt bass scatters
hard low percussives into the arena. The album is then cut in half by the
wild trance-funk of “Soup”, a 10 minute freakout back in Tago Mago- land.
I didn’t love it as a 14 year old except for its ability to empty rooms.
Harmonically, I wish now that it were at the end of the album, but what a
fucking carve-up. When Damo starts raving like Kevin Rowlands from
Dexy’s it gets really funny. Then it’s into “I’m So Green”, my favourite
ever Can song. This light breeze of a song is so flimsy that it threatens to
blow away at any minute. Here’s where the David Cassidy comparisons
compare most favourably. And then “Spoon” closes Ege Bamyasi with just
about the most unusual “Making love in the afternoon” hit song of all time.
This was the first Can LPI bought brand new (Torquay, July 1972) and it is
still my favourite.

14. CAN - Delay (Spoon)

HOLGER CZUKAY-bass
MICHAEL KAROLI-guitar
JAKI LEIBEZEIT-drums
MALCOLM MOONEY-vocals
IRMIN SCHMIDT - keyboards

When Can’s Delay came out in 1982, it was a hell of a revelation. They’d
sounded even more raw than Monster Movie. Whoa. Michael Karoli tore
chords straight out of the Martin Bramah/Fall school of ’78. 10 years early.
No wonder they thought it was too much in 1968. And it was a trip just to
hear the obvious Mothers/Beefheart grunge-funk of “19th Century Man”
and “Butterfly”. Happily, Can kept the fartsqueekblurt to a minimum and
just punked it up on Delay. Malcolm Mooney is as brilliant as ever. Though
I was a Damo Suzuki nut, I feel that had Malcolm Mooney never gone
crazy, they would have been as consistent as the Velvets, and would never
have given way to the class-act tactic. Delay reveals Mooney to be a
stronger singer and narrator than ever, “Thief’ especially is as mournful as

107

his tracks on the Can Soundtracks. It’s a real shame that Can’s release style
was so bitty. They were forever putting classics next to those horrible E.F.S.
jerk-offs they obviously found so chortlingly successful, but which were
really just irritating flotsam & jetsam. Never mind, buy Delay and lose your
head.

15. Cluster II (Brain)

DIETER MOEBIUS-Guitars, keyboards, electronics, percussion &FX
HANS-JOACHIM ROEDELIUS-Guitars, keyboards, electronics, percussion & FX

This was really Cluster’s first LP in terms of an available career that music
fans could really buy into, yet it is musically as challenging as the previous
three LPs that bore the Cluster name in its differently spelled guises. Dieter
Moebius & Hans-Joachim Roedelius’ previous incarnation as Kluster, with
Conrad Schnitzler, had produced two sonic experiments that bore more
allegiance to Schnitzler, whilst the Phillips released Cluster, though a fab¬
ulous record similar to drumless early Kraftwerk, has always been virtual¬
ly impossible to find. Again, Conny Plank is a mainstay of this recording
team, even receiving co-credits for the writing of Cluster II. The six minute
opener “Plas” is reminiscent of the first Cluster LP with pounding echoes of
sound reverberating around the cosmos. Cluster II has much in common
with early Suicide, indeed it is hard to imagine that Alan Vega & Martin
Rev did not base many of their sound experiments on this music. The 12-
minute “Im Suden (In the South)” features slow cyclical fuzz guitar repeat¬
ed over a fading ominous backing track, whilst a treated early
drum-machine clatters in and out of the mix, creating an arid desert effect.
“Fur Die Katz” closes Side 1, returning again to the same cosmic FX
lunescape that so much of the early Cluster trip inhabits. Side 2 opens with
the 14 minute “Live in der Fabrik”, another huge vibrational landscape
where melody has no place and the unfolding of unworldy events is every¬
thing. But Cluster get closest to a normal world on “Georgel” where the
identifiable organ makes a refreshing change, and the album closer is the
percussive and surprisingly expressionist “Nabitte”, on which pianos clang
back and forth over the same two chords as artificially generated rhythm
ebbs and flows in a tidal manner. There is a timelessness in this music which
releases it from restrictions such as bars and beats per minute, though
Tangerine Dream would take this to its logical conclusion on Zeit, and
Cluster would later meet Neul’s Michael Rother, and discover melody in
music.

1 6. CLUSTER - Zuckerzeit (Brain)

DIETER MOEBIUS & HANS JOACHIM ROEDELIUS - e. organ, piano, rhythm-
machine, Davoli & Farfisa synthesizers, Hawaii & e. guitar

After Cluster II, this bizarre follow-up took Cluster in a direction that they

108

would increasingly develop over the years. Zuckerzeit means ‘Sugar-time’,
and the syrupy child’s synthesizer music class ethic was suddenly out in
force. Starting the LP with a drum-machine that most groups would not
even consider was working. Cluster stormed into the opening
Hollywood” mantra as though they had the balls-out rhythm section of
life. Gone were the long Velvets drones and the space-cake emittings and
bleeps, and in came the Clangers-on-a-toy-planet sound that Dieter
Moebius seems to have inspired. In terms of audio retardation, this is
Cluster’s finest record. For they simplified everything so much that the
whole album seems like merely snatches of some passing car’s stereo
turned up full. On “Caramel”, they managed to have three instruments
playing the same sub-Troggs riff! Eno was mightily impressed by
Zuckerzeit and spent a great deal of time making his next album Another
Green World full of similar short short vignettes. But compared to the
Cluster technique, his muso-packed eulogy was stilted and unorganic. On
Zuckerzeit , Cluster displayed a wisdom of sound that is utterly reconciled
to the titles, delivery and entire trip. “Hollywood”, “Caramel”,
"Marzipan”, “James”, etc. There is no duffer title. On “Rote Riki”, they
deemed a burbling fizzy synth fart-attack worthy of jamming on for over
six minutes. It works splendidly, but who the hell genius thought of taking
the risk needs a kiss and a slap with a wet fish at the same time. Zuckerzeit
was produced by their Harmonia cohort, Michael Rother of Neu! Like
Kraftwerk, Cluster seemed equally attracted and simultaneously repulsed
by anything rock’n’roll. The sleeve is good enough to eat, and Dieter
Moebius is sitting on Joachim Roedelius’ lap on the inner sleeve! It’s hys¬
terically compellingly brilliant on ALL levels.

17. CLUSTER - Sowiesoso (Sky)

DIETER MOEBIUS & HANS-JOACHIM ROEDELIUS-All instruments

After the brilliant artistic success but huge commercial failure of the 1975
Deluxe LP, Harmonia split up and Michael Rother went solo. But Rother’s
mput had changed Cluster forever and 1976’s Sowiesoso was the first fruit
of that labour. The album opens with the eight minute title-track, a perfect
one-chord marriage of the early mantric experimental style, and the curious
lilting melodies that pervaded their music after Rother’s involvement.
Halwa” follows in an obvious Eastern-styled synthesizer Arabesque with
crassly beautiful monophonic synthesizers, and then it’s off into the easy
going cosmic schoolboy instrumental called “Dem Wanderer”. The side
closes with a psychedelic Charlie Brown-theme tune called “Umleitung
Diversion)” with its funny repeated piano motif and bouncy octave bass,
as a chorus of German ravers fades in almost against the beat. This tune
especially lodges itself into the brain like few others, hooky like only
Cluster can be. On Side 2, three long pieces of gentle atmosphere pervade:
~Zum Wohl” is a slow drive through the stars, “Es War Einmal” is another
darling Charlie Brown theme tune, sad and reeking of lost childhood, and

109

half-remembered nursery-rhymes. But the closing track, “In Ewigkeit”, is
even more Charlie Brown-like: a beat generation late night-club hometime
pedestrian jazzer played on electronic instruments over a heartbeat bass
drum. Sowiesoso is candy pop music in the surreal world.

Other Records: Cluster continued to release albums for many years
after this, as well as recording many solo LPs and collaborations also:
RASTAKRAUTPASTA/Moebius & Plank, ZERO SET/Moebius, Plank &
Neumeier, the CLUSTER & ENO LP, AFTER THE HEAT/Cluster & Eno.
etc. Of their ’ 80s albums, I am a fan of CURIOSUM but not a fan of
GROSSES WASSER. Moebius & Roedelius recently released a new CD
which Eve not yet heard. Generally, / would advise you to check unrecom¬
mended releases thoroughly as their output is always fabulously diverse.

18. TONY CONRAD w/ FAUST - Outside the Dream Syndicate

(Caroline)

TONY CONRAD-violin
RUDOLF SOSNA - electronics & guitar
JEAN-HERVE PERON-bass
WERNER DIERMEIER-drums

The Faust billing on this actually breaks a few trade-descriptions acts. Only
three of Faust’s five members appear here with Tony Conrad and, for me.
just the missing sax of Gunter Wusthoff makes the Faust appellation debat¬
able. But this is no place for pedantry, for Outside the Dream Syndicate is a
supreme Krautrock record and is the Missing Link that explains German
obsessions with the New York experimental scene and the Warhol scene.
The original LP was originally released on Virgin’s mid-priced Caroline
label for £1.49, and was a big hit at parties. Outside the Dream Syndicate is
just two long tracks called “The Side of the Machine” and “The Side of
Man & Womankind”. Both are 20 minute-plus mantras of a Groove-main¬
tained. One track features a stilted straight ahead mid/slow beat, the other
is a rippling tom-tom heavy roll. At all times, Tony Conrad’s violin is an
unwavering and secure one note/one tone. When the album was re-issued
recently on CD, there appeared a brand new 20 minute track called “The
Side of Woman & Mankind”. Of course. The same stoic mantra was there
again. In the avant-garde, Conrad knows no peers. He is so fundamentalist
that his only rival in the whole of the Universal music scene could be Sk>
Saxon of the Seeds. No-one but Saxon and Conrad have ever shown such
commitment to repeating themselves over & over on the off chance that the
Truth may just be a slightly different shade to the last one they tried.
Outside the Dream Syndicate is ideal for playing repeatedly until it take'
over the room and actively Becomes you.

110

19. Cosmic Jokers { Kosmische Musik/Cosmic Co^ r ie r s

MANUEL GOTTSCHING - guitar
KLAUS SCHULTZE - synthesizer
DIETER DIERKS - bass & mixing
HAROLD GROSSKOPF - drums
JURGEN DOLLASE-keyboards

This is Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser’s finest and most dubious hour. Probably con¬
ceived during the chaos of the Timothy Leary/Ash Ra Tempel ‘festival’ in
Bern, Switzerland, ‘The Kaiser’ began to record cosmic jams using various
configurations of musicians. Cosmic Jokers is easily the greatest of these
albums, possibly because it’s the most archetypal Kosmische Krautrock
trip of all. Two long songs which build, erupt, decay, diminish, falter, re¬
group, undulating all the time and rising and falling like a musical oil
wheel. It’s astonishing organic free-rock of the highest standard of all time.
The album is credited to the five musicians, a peculiar Krautrock super¬
group. Ash Ra Tempel’s leader, Manuel Gottsching, plays extremely cos¬
mic rhythm guitars that falter and fade and get phased and fazed, whilst
Jurgen Dollase, leader and keyboard player of the heavy group
Wallenstein, and his drummer, Harold Grosskopf, both add linear unfath-
omables quite at odds with the leaden arrangements of their full-time
group. Klaus Schultze adds washes of yet more synthesizer, and the awe¬
some mixing desk of Dieter Dierks effectively takes the lot into cosmic
stew territory with an attitude that often renders individual instruments
indistinguishable from each other. It’s a rolling dub mix where one instru¬
ment is always taking the lead but never for long before another rises to take
its place - an endless waxing and waning, a pure joy to trip out to.

20. COSMIC JOKERS - Galactic Supermarket (Kosmische
Musik)

KLAUS SCHULTZE - synthesizers
MANUEL GOTTSCHING - guitars
JURGEN DOLLASE - mellotron & piano
HARALD GROSSKOPF - drums
DIETER DIERKS - bass & mixing
ROSI MULLER-vocals
3ILLE LETMANN-vocals

Starting with a heavy piano/drums groove like John Cale and Terry Riley’s
“The Protege” from their classic LP Church of Anthrax, The Cosmic Jokers
return to their trip with an un-cosmic dub beginning, melodicas and guitars
spinning off all over the place. Gille Letmann says a couple of words before
the breakdown into Clangerland, a place where goofy synthesizers call to
each other over exquisite mellotrons and tinkling spacey grand piano.
Again, it’s just two huge tracks - this time the ever shifting “Kinder Des
Als” and the title track “Galactic Supermarket”. The female voices take a
while to assimilate after the austerity of the first Cosmic Jokers LP, and the

111

opening track wanders around for a while before ascending to its righteou'
groove. The women scream “Schnell Schnell!” and the helicopter drums o|
Harald Grosskopf propel us once more into a hectic frantic major-chor:
trance out. It’s the sheer unbalance that makes this record such a delight. At
times, Klaus Schultze’s synthesizer is so loud that it swamps everything ir
its path.

The title track “Galactic Supermarket” begins like one of Van Der Grau
Generator’s greatest and most drawn out riffs. A slow 6/4 bass licks over
ominous Pawn Hearts-style shifting chords. Again, the piece is slow to
begin, as though they are searching for harmony but each musician is con¬
fused and solitary. Manuel Gottsching freaks out in a fury of wa-guitu
madness, forcing the others awake, but this is really a down-in-the-mouth
scene and the whole Trip descends further and further until... an inevitab!.
slow burning groove gets itself together and the scene whips itself up into -
Shake Appeal Flip-out. This LP takes a little longer to get into than Th
Cosmic Jokers , but give it time and it’s in your head forever. Those pierc
ingly loud Klaus Schultze synthesizers which sound so bizarre the fim'
time? You’ll be waking up with them in your head, whistling them in the
street, people will think you’ve lost your fucking mind. Right On.

21 COSMIC JOKERS - Planeten Sit-In (Kosm'ische Musik)

FEATURES THE REGULAR COSMIC COURIERS CROWD

Billed as the Quadrosound Hobby Magazine sampler, I never noticed qui:.
how weird this LP was until I had to review it for this book. Planeten Sit-in
starts with the ultra-farty “Raumschiff Galaxy Startet”, a synthesizer ou:
burst of four dimensional interest which quickly segues into the drur
phased maelstrom vocalled “The Planet of Communication
“Elektronenzircus” kicks in another synthesizer freakout of half a minute -
length into “Der Narr im AH’, a Cosmic Jokers “Astronomy Dominie” trip
“Raumschiff Galaxy fliegt in die Sonne” is another Funkadelic-angle-
“Free Your Mind & Your Ass Will Follow” trip-out. A deafening mom
lithic monophonic synthesizer cuts through everything in its wa>
“Intergalactic Nightclub” is a cross between John Cale and Terry Rile> •
“The Protege” and Irmin Schmidt’s vocals on Soon Over Babaluma s
“Come Sta, La Luna”. The final track of the side is a synthesizer and tom
tom psyche-out into a kind of Ivor Cutler mantra, and the beautiful recur
ring Jurgen Dollase piano theme. Side 2 is a helicopter rotor blan.
synthesizer attack beginning with high frequencies spilling all over, an.
bass and drums loose grooving. The track is “Electronic News” and we're
back in Funkadelic territory, though they never got 2/1000’s as loose a
this. It’s sheer throwaway catch-the-moment genius.

“Intergalactic Radio Guri Broadcasting” is a drum-led groove with syr
thesizers and beats coming in and out. Loads of echo, then totally dry an
some chanting. More chanting and synthesizers. Bubbling, squealing
below it the rhythm persists. More noise then a bass-led rhythm then squir

112

iing farting synthesizers and you can’t tell whether it’s “Raumschiff Galaxy
tieitet im Sonnenwind” or “Interstellar Rock: Kosmische Musik”.
W hatever, it is beautiful and epic and I love it to death. Harald Grosskopf
has an insistence to his drumming that I’ve never recognised in anyone
else. He hits fast snare rolls, many in rapid succession, as the rhythm is held
’.ogether by the thunderous bass/e.guitar crunch. More Dr. Who-ness from
Raumschiff Galaxy saust in die Lichtbahnen”, then it’s off to the “Planet
«Jes Stemmadchens”, a kind of Galactic Supermarket female freakout
iffair, with Gille gasping and cooing over heavy pulse drumming and the
c^ligatory cosmic synthesizer.

2. COSMIC JOKERS -Sci-Fi Party (Kosmische Musik)

;• LLE LETMANN-voice
5 p IAN BARRITT-voice
.‘.ALTER WEGMULLER-voice
ROSI MULLER-voice

. JRGEN DOLLASE (Wallenstein) - keyboards
-ARALD GROSSKOPF (Wallenstein)-drums
. ERRY BERKERS (Wallenstein) - bass
-ARTMUT ENKE (Ash Ra Tempel) - guitar
VANUEL GOTTSCHING (Ash Ra Tempel) - guitar
CLAUS SCHULTZE - synthesizers

Salter westrupp- various
DfETER DIERKS-bass

Sci-Fi Party is the great Kosmische Musik sampler, an advert for Tarot,
Gilles Zeitschijf, The Cosmic Jokers’ Galactic Supermarket , Ash Ra
Tempel’s Starring Rosi , the Planeten Sit-in LP, and Wallenstein’s Cosmic
Century, one of the straws that broke the Cosmic Couriers’ back but a great
LP nonetheless. The record begins with “Im Reich Der Magier (In the Land
of the Magician)”, a spoken word piece by Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser and Gille
Letmann over an edit from “Galactic Joke”, the side long first track on the
Cosmic Jokers LP. It always reminded me of a weird take on The Doors’
'Riders on the Storm”, before flying off into deepest Space-rock territory.
T.'s eight and a half minutes of re-mixed bliss. Next up is the most ‘street’
cut the Cosmic Couriers ever did, the fabulous “Der Herrscher”. If this was
i modem 45,1 reckon it would be a hit. The vocals shoot all over the place
whilst George Harrison on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” assaults a
mutant riff of Neil Young’s “Lookout Joe” and the Wayne County band
playing “Sweet Jane”. Then you have the true sick insanity of “The Cosmic
Couriers Meet South Philly Willy”, a nightmare guitar theme tune right out
f Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Yes, it’s that sick and jaunty.
This is where Wallenstein are at without someone to watch over them.
Beware. Side 2 opens in a flurry of distorted junior synthesizers, then the
mg Daddy synthesizer shoos them all out of the room and it’s an edit from
'Kinder Des Als” from Galactic Supermarket. Re-shuffling these tracks in
i new situation with introductions, etc. is a very cool idea and Sci-Fi Party

113

is just that. Next is Brian Barritt’s “The Electronic Scene”, in which h
explains the extreme possibilities felt within the Leary camp on meeting
the Kosmische crew. Jurgen Dollase’s beautiful mellotron descent from
“Kinder Des Als” then returns and mixes serenely into Ash Ra Temper*
“Interplay of Forces”. This is the most cosmic of their most commerci.
Starring Rosi LP, which Manuel Gottsching chose to do after the
Kosmische overdose at Dierks’ studio. “Interplay of Forces” becomes 2
classic psychedelic instrumental. Sci-Fi Party ends with “Planeten Sit-in - ,
a re-mix from Tarot and a beautiful piano and synthesizer piece reminiscer
of Songs forDrella by Lou Reed and John Cale. And so, gently and breezi¬
ly, ends the gaudily jacketed, havoc-causing record they called Sci-'t
Party.

23 STERNMADCHEN (ASH RA TEMPEL, COSMIC JOKERS &
GILLE LETMANN) - Gilles Zeitschiff {D\e Kosmische Kuriere)

GILLE LETMANN - spoken word

TIMOTHY LEARY - spoken word

WALTER WEGMULLER - spoken word

R-U KAISER - spoken word & producer

BRIAN BARR ITT - spoken word

LIZ ELLIOTT - spoken word

KLAUS SCHULTZE (Ash Ra Tempel) - synthesizers

MANUEL GOTTSCHING (Ash Ra Tempel) - guitar

HARTMUT ENKE (Ash Ra Tempel)- bass, guitar & FX

JURGEN DOLLASE (Wallenstein) - keyboards

HARALD GROSSKOPF (Wallenstein) - drums

TOMMY ENGEL (Ash Ra Tempel) - drums

DIETMAR BURMEISTER (Ash Ra Tempel) - drums

DIETER DIERKS-synthesizer & mix

A monumental space-rock magazine, Gilles Zeitschiff is a long spoke*
word Tripout apologia in which The Kaiser and Gille Letmann used he*
Starmaiden guise to explain/further mythologise and generally eulogise t
whole Cosmic Couriers trip. Using tracks from previous Cosmic Courier*
LPs remixed by Dieter Dierks, and overlaid with Gille’s spoken words, the
record was very was successful and deeply trippy - it is a real classic. The
best two tracks are Brian Barritt’s “Cosmic Courier Bon Chance”, in whidj
he explains the psychic aspects of making Sci-Fi/Psi-Phi music work. aa4
the greatest of all, “Electronic Zeitalter”. This is Ash Ra Tempel at the*
most Kosmische and with Klaus Schultze. It’s a jewelled mantric pieccj
fabulously level all the way through and again using the same ch«*
sequence previously heard on the Schwingungen epic “Suche & Liebe” ^
the 7Up epic “Time”. The voices of Tim Leary and Brian Barritt waft in
out over a timeless Dark Star spacescape. And Gilles Zeitschiff has tfcfl
greatest cover of all the Cosmic Couriers’ LPs. It is Peter Geitner’s fine*
moment in the bizarre tackiness of ’70s gameshows, huge glitter head]

114

phones, and an enormous 48" x 36" poster featuring all of the Cosmic
Couriers stars.

24 FAUST - Faust AKA Clear (Polydor)

ARNULF MElFERT-drums
WERNER DIERMEIER -drums
HANS-JOACHIM IRMLER-organ
GUNTER WUSTHOFF - synthesizer & sax
RUDOLF SOSNA - guitar & keyboards
JEAN-HERVE PERON-bass

Four years ago, I had dinner with a very successful journalist who told me
that he’d had to review Love’s Forever Changes for Q Magazine now that
it was available on CD. Wow, I shouted. You lucky fucker! Yes, he said. But
I know it so well I couldn’t summon up any real energy, so I just gave it
8/10. Forever Changes is a dark achievement. Were it an ancient text on a
document it would be hidden from view and spoken of in obscure circles.
But because it operates through the medium of Pop Music, it gets tarts like
said Journalist giving it 8/10. This is a classic case of a man Sleepwalking
through life. So now I have to set to and tell you about the first Faust album,
and I will not let you down. For a start, it’s a big 10/10. No, make that 11/10.
It defies categories. It’s a horrible noise. It’s cut-ups to the Nth degree. Part
of it is just like Frank Zappa’s Lumpy Gravy (a funny bit, thank the
Goddess.) It is super-gimmicky, syrupy in the weirdest places, and never
outstays its welcome. But probably the strangest thing of all is just how
good Faust sound when they are creating on the spot moments of rock¬
'n'roll on the epic “Miss Fortune”. Here they transcend all studio trickery,
and here they come alive. Listen to the Mothers of Invention’s concert
recordings from 1966 onwards and it’s just trash. Musical bollocks of the
most merely capable variety. Faust live? This is a different thing entirely.
Like all the greatest Teutonic groups, Faust were brought up with middle-
European dances and a staple of folk and tradition which was not 4/4. As a
consequence, German bands could get far more complex than U.S. and
British bands would ever dare and it still sounds rocking and crazy, rather
than a bunch of Twee Smug Gits. Find an old Caravan, Man or Henry Cow
LP for 50p somewhere and compare it with this. I’m joking of course.

25. FAUST -So Far (Polydor)

WERNER DERMAIER-drums
HANS-JOACHIM IRMLER-organ
-EAN-HERVE PERON-bass
RUDOLF SOSNA - guitar & keyboards
3UNTER WUSTHOFF - synthesizer & sax

As classic rock’n’roll album openers go, few beat So Far's “It’s a Rainy
Day (Sunshine Girl)”. Tom-toms bom-bom-bom-bom for a few bars, then

115

a low bass piano copies it in the thud-thud-thud-thud, then the Krautrock
Temptations coo to each other: “It’s a Rainy day, sunshine girl, it’s a rainy
day, sunshine baby.” Talk about a smart bloody opening. The best sax solo
in the world chases the fade. It’s my favourite ever Faust song. Have I said
that enough times, yet? I’ll be honest about it. I really like Krautrock. Faust
So Far was released in an all black sleeve. The album has a shiny blackness
to the music. There’s an ominousness in the gross image that depicts the
song “No Harm”, a small woman being attacked by a gargantuan man,
which is disgusting and questionable. But I’m sure that it was intended to
displease, though I can’t say that is any great reason for an artist to do such
a thing. Elements of the Velvet Underground acoustic third album scene is
picked out by Faust around this time. Also, the brass fanfare of the title
track has a tough instrumental skank, pre-dating Can’s Teutonic reggae
excursions. “Mamie is Blue” is yet another rip of the Soft Machine’s “We
Did it Again”, but the drumming/synthesizer playing duel is truly astonish¬
ing music, especially those electric drill funk noises. Side 2 also contains
more of the typical Faust semi-cut-up-threatening-to-be-a-song any-
moment trip. I think they intended to record a Typical Rock Album as a
basic standpoint, but they tried not to make the songs typical at all.
Certainly, “It’s a Rainy day (Sunshine Girl)” is the classic opener, and “In
the Spirit” closes So Far the same way “America Drinks and Goes Home"
ends the Mothers’ Absolutely Free, the same way “Jugband Blues” ends A
Saucerful of Secrets, the way “Something Happened to me Yesterday” ends
the Rolling Stones’ Between the Buttons. Maybe I need a couple more
examples. This is a great album. Search it out.

26. FAUST - The Faust Tapes (Virgin)

ARNULF MEIFERT- drums
WERNER DIERMEIER-drums
RUDOLF SOSNA-guitar & keyboard
HANS JOACHIM IRMLER-organ
JEAN HERVEPERON-bass
GUNTER WUSTHOFF - synthesizer & sax

It well befits the Myth of Krautrock that what became the figurehead of the
genre originally bailed out of the shops at 49p! And even more incredible •
the recent revelation that Virgin Records lost no money on the campaign
Steve Lewis, the man behind the scam, claims to have taken very few risk
for what appeared at the time as an Heroic release. Whilst the mastertape i
Faust’s home-recordings was bought cheaply from Uwe Nettlebeck, th
album sleeve was a glorious Warholian pre-punk mess. One side was press
clippings that revealed just how freaked-out their home country had bee-
when the clear Faust LP had first appeared in 1971. The other side w.
Bridgit Riley’s monochrome op-art trip called ‘Crest’. And even this wa
ari obvious and risk-free winner. Five or so years earlier, Leona: .
Bernstein’s out there Music for our Time LP had employed Riley *
‘Current’ to fabulous effect. That the two different paintings could ha\ e

116

been details of one larger work ensured in advance that The Faust Tapes
would look great.

The album fades in slowly in a cacophony of rainy city blues, droning
synthesizers and tonelessness. An abrupt edit cuts suddenly to a call and
answer vocal and drum groove and... bang! A savage edit into... a ballad.
Piano, drums, acoustic guitar, Eno-ish synthesizer and voice. A ballad.
Except that the vocals were intriguingly trans-Atlantic and sounded
insightfully psychedelic in a badly-translated way. It was charming:

“When you leave your place and walk in someone other’s garden,
Suddenly you see, it’s a woman colour in your mind to be.”

Most surprising about The Faust Tapes is the number of truly wonderful
pop and rock songs hidden within the cut-ups and experiments of the
album’s tangled grooves. And halfway through Side 1 is their most defining
Krautrock riff of all. It’s another of Faust’s Krautrock/Family Stone/
Temptations trips in the tradition of “It’s a Rainy Day”. A scientific
German-American voice makes pronouncements over the groove and

Gunter Wusthoff’s sax tears along over a loopy breakneck driving beat,
as the call and answer of life kicks in:

“Chet-vah Buddha, Cherra-loopiz
Chet-vah Buddha, Cherra-loopiz
Chet-vah Buddha, Cherra-loopiz
Chet-vah Buddha, Cherra-loopiz.”

50,000 copies of The Faust Tapes were sold in 1973 and the night they
played at Birmingham Town Hall, it seemed as though those words could
become a football anthem. The Heads were taking over. Soon after, as we
lay in my friend Cott’s caravan listening to The John Peel Show, out of
nowhere the DJ began to read out the names of the 20 or more songs from
The Faust Tapes. The sleeve and label of the LP had showed no titles to any
of the songs and Cott raced around trying to find a pen. It was all over in
half-a-minute and all I could remember was some title about Humphrey
Bogart. It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that John Peel was
in on Faust’s intended wind-up of its audience - that we were only meant to
hear the titles fleetingly and race around like half-wits. And Faust were
nght... it was their persistence in the Entirety of their trip that makes them
'O legendary now. Even better. The Faust Tapes was the social phenome¬
non of 1973, and it finally brought the true avant garde into everyone’s liv¬
ing room, for a short while at least. But most of all this LP revealed just
which side of the fence everyone was really standing. In April 1980, Jim
Kerr, leader of dinosaurs Simple Minds, gleefully told me how he and his
mates had all chucked their copies of The Faust Tapes off the roof of a
Glasgow tenement. Enough Said? I’m sure that’s the phrase.

117

27. FAUST -IV (Virgin)

WERNER DIERMEIER-drums
HANS-JOACHIM IRMLER-organ
GUNTER WUSTHOFF - synthesizer, sax & sleeve art
RUDOLF SOSNA-guitar & keyboards
JEAN-HERVE PERON - bass

This was Faust’s oddity. No one got it at the time (apart from the few wh
are right now saying, “Hold on, I got it!” Yeah, well I never saw you mak¬
ing too much fuss.) Faust left their beloved schoolhouse in Wumme for th„
plush art-hippy surroundings of Virgin’s Manor Studios in Oxfordshire
The difference is large, though sonically not at all. They opened Faust 1 •
with “Krautrock”, a raging 12 minute Velvets inspired E-major wa-ever>-
thing instrumental. It’s an acid meditation of the highest Theta-in-a-rock
’n’roll-style as you ever would wish to conceive of. 12 minutes is a lor _
while. I don’t think the drums come in for about six minutes, though F\t
never timed it. And though I say Velvets-inspired, only John Cale/Terr •
Riley’s Academy in Peril is a true comparison. But “Krautrock” is just
FUZZY. “The Sad Skinhead” follows, an unlikely bluebeat skank. There
a crap Kim Fowley single from the mid-’70s that opens, “Here comes ze^
Vest German reggae music!” Well, this is truly it. “The Sad Skinhead"
also like very early Television, bitty and psychotically twee. “Jennifer"
seven minutes of Barrett-ised dream psychedelia, low “A Day in the Life
tom-toms behind the song give it its phenomenal atmosphere. Side 2 is ju-
as good - another semi-medley like Side 2 of So Far. There’s some raw aci.
guitar-rock into their classic “Giggy Smile”. This is in the top five of a
Faust songs. Imagine the Mothers of Invention if they’d coerced Zappa int
taking LSD. Faust mix a boogie with a Bavarian on-the beat and get a kind
of (yet again) Syd Barrett, “Honey Love You, Honey little Sunday momir:£
love” feeling. Psychotic and jaunty. Faust IV finished quite sadly. “It’s a bit
of a Pain to be where I am” is the lyric. Back on their “Jesus/Some Kinc.
Love” trip, and they say goodbye - it was the last studio album together. A
tragedy, really. But as I was one of Faust IVs teen detractors, it’s possibl
best to just regret that their moment did arrive, did pass, and has now take*
its foothold in rock’n’roll history.

28 GURU GURU - U.F.O. (Ohr)

MANI NEUMEIER - drums, percussion, e. drums, gongs, voice, tape &
Contactmike

ULITREPTE- bass, microphone, transistor radio, intercom & mixer
AX GENRICH - guitar, echo-units & pedals

Guru Guru had no vibe whatsoever in Britain and I remember seeing a cop}
of this album in Mercer’s Record Shop, in Tamworth, when I was 14. ard j
the same copy again when I was 20 during the punk thing. It never soilfl
because we all thought it was a hard rock LP like Jane or Birth Control
Once you spend your money on that stuff, you get scared to experinu -*

118

* ith such limited funds ever again. Which is a shame because UFO is what
every psychedelic power trio should have sounded like. In fact many of
:hem did until record companies dismissed it as jamming and said, “All
•a ell and good but where’s the song?” On UFO, riffs grind out like Kraut-
Sabbath and remedial solos are sustained whilst the drums, at times, move
into free-jazz territory so totally at odds with everyone else that it’s a
berserk and head-detuning moment. There’s no point in describing each
track as they exist on a planet of their own making, but I’ll try in any case.
For instance, “Stone-In” opens the album, a spacious moan at mid-tempo,
a hilst Mani Neumeier wails low and jazzy, like Oscar Peterson used to do.
“Girl Call” follows in noise-rock territory until a riff gradually emerges and
noogies the brain for a while, whilst Ax Genrich’s wa-vibrato peals like
hells and pulls at you from all sides, before the most horrible edit into
Retardville and the genius of “Next Time See You at the Dalai Lama”. The
title-track covers half of Side 2, a Dark Star mass of becalmed deep-space.
This is my favourite side of Guru Guru. There’s a 12-minute track of equal
intensity on the second LP, Hinten, called “Spaceship”. The album ends
a ith “Der LSD-Marsch”, which sounds as though it was recorded in a
vjhool rehearsal hall after listening to the Troggs - over-recorded recorders
-nd space-whispers give way to Joy Division intensity that will not give up.
But simple fuzz-themes and co-exist with the resident free-bass and jazz
drums on UFO.

Other Records: Though I 've only put one Guru Guru LP in my Top 50,1
should mention that their first four LPs are remarkable and charming in a
curious and inspiring way. Fd recommend you listen to HINTEN, KAN-
GURU and GURU GURU but / personally get less into them as they
become more quirky and feature more rock elements.

SERGIUS GOLOWIN - Lord Krishna Von Goloka (Cosmic
Couriers KK 55002)

SERGIUS GOLOWIN - spoken word

-ERRY BERKERS (Wallenstein) - bass & guitars, bongos & vocals
. JRGEN DOLLASE (Wallenstein)-piano, mellotron, vibraphone, triangle & guitar
-ORG MIERKE - e. guitar, organ, percussion, spoken word & vocals, flute,
electronics & congas

* .AUS SCHULTZE (Ash Ra Tempel) - drums & percussion, organ, Mellotron,
ju tars & electronics

*‘»ALTER WESTRUPP-acoustic guitar, flute, mouth-organ, South Cambodian
wndchimes, psalter, tablas & percussion
EERND WITTHUSER - acoustic guitar

In which, Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser offered us the second of his great Mage
Recordings. After Timothy Leary (KK55001) had so moved the producer
*ith 7Up, ‘The Kaiser’ and his Starmaiden Gille Letmann decided to stay
in Switzerland and record some more of the wise old men. As with Leary,
the recording of Sergius Golowin, the middle-aged ex-MP, was nothing
iess than a full-on Vision-saga. Six musicians accompanied Golowin’s pro-

119

nouncements throughout the LP, and it’s most remarkable of all that the
speaker showed such restraint, often letting the band fly off into Ash R~
Tempel-land at any opportunity. It makes the most sensational combination
and a long Kosmische-epic of high magic proportions. Opening with the 15
minute plus “Der Reigen”, the LP announces its occultural intention with
sombre pre-Christian keyboards then softly softly into the ritual... a build¬
ing slow amoeba production, at first scouting but soon positive in its holy
direction. This music is a life, but then “Der Reigen” means the dance and
these performers are whipping it out. There is one very different song on
this LP, called “Die Weisee Aim”. It’s a piece of Jurgen Dollase music and
it is very beautiful indeed. The chords are mawkishly Cosmically senti¬
mental, in a huge Alpen Euro-keyboard way as Golowin tells us of the
Edelweiss blooming. It sounds unlike any other song I’ve heard before,
conjuring up the same daft but nevertheless true feelings as something like
David Ackles’ heroic “Montana Song” from American Gothic.

The huge unfolding driving thing called “Die Hoch-Zeit” covers the
whole of Side 2, in which Klaus Schultze’s drums are combine harvesters
in a Canadian wheat field 50 miles across. Massive choirs of mellotron hold
the distant horizon and the machine that is the music covers the land like
locusts. Dry dry music. Arid heavy tragedy - Side 2 of Joy Division’s
Closer. Golowin doesn’t even say a word for about the first eight minutes.
Then he’s off on a long intense psychic bloodletting of indescribable beau¬
ty. Underneath, the music rages off sometimes inaudible, sometimes unlis-
tenable, sometimes so holy, so righteous that the listener lifts into
hyper-space and clarity is approaching. There is no doubt this is the very
highest magic - believe me. The Ur-klang of Mesolithic Man. No intellec¬
tual ever made music such as this. Golowin has three wives and lives in the
mountains still. His voice and that music. A righteous vision.

30. HARMONIA - Musik von Harmonia (Brain)

J. ROEDEL1US - organ, piano, guitar & e. percussion
MICHAEL ROTHER - guitar, piano, organ & e. percussion
DIETER MOEBIUS-synthesizer, guitar &e. percussion

Like eternal music that has briefly surfaced into the real world, “Watussi”
fades in tripping over itself, its drum-machine rhythm as unlikely and flat-
footed as anything on the trio’s collaborations on Cluster’s Zockerzeit.
Indeed, it is this otherworldy quality courses throughout the debut
Harmonia album; melodies are both child-like and cosmically eternal at the
same time. The next track “Sehr Kosmisch (Very Cosmic)” (!) also fades in.
a distant 11-minute mood piece propelled by heartbeat bass drum and the
synthesizers of another cosmos calling to us. Eventually, huge hothouse
drum rhythms come pulsing out of nowhere, similar in general attitude to
the low-key side of Eno’s Another Green World. And then it’s off on the
electronic horse-ride of “Sonnenschein”, a beautiful electric snare-drum
march that reminds me of Omar Sharrif’s dramatic and endless arrival out

120

of the heat haze in David Lean’s “Lawrence of Arabia”. It is diffic u
explain these pieces. They are vignettes of a sort, but far more than th,;:. *

ing up vast areas of sound and then disappearing back into the cosmic fi -
"Dino” is an uplifting Neu! groove under a sibilant and all-pervading dr-
machine. Michael Rother’s guitar is prominent and tragic on this track,
preparing us for the pure Cluster of “Ohrwurm (Earworm)”, a static me
ically challenged slob-piece with Dieter Moebius’ guitar showing a
delightfully slack and underachieving sound. “Ahoi!” is becalmed on a
river, a half-speed messing about in boats trip with no percussion and a
rhythm that has all the urgency of a fat man in a kid’s paddling pool, whih:
"Veterano” returns to the “Dino” fast 4/4 drum-machine dominated sound,
over which typical Cluster/Harmonia pretty prettiness plays alongside a
curiously Ege Bamyasi-period Michael Karoli-styled guitar lick. Again,
the loud drum-machine trips over itself and virtually consigns the rest of the
music to the back of the hall. The whole album is one of caught moods, like
catching the little people playing on a remote VHS camera but knowing
that they’d have run a mile had you been there. Musik Von Harmonia is
very much like that - it hardly seems to be the product of modem musi¬
cians, existing in a different period of the world. And with the strange toy¬
like electric piano of “Hausmusik”, Harmonia are gone. Their second LP
was nothing like as curious sounding, far more confident and upfront. But
this LP is meditational despite the shortness of its tracks, and each mood-
piece of long snippets of feel and vibration sends the listener into a delight¬
fully whacked-out state.

31. HARMONIA - Deluxe (Brain)

MICHAEL ROTHER - guitars, keyboards, vocals
HANS-JOACHIM ROEDELIUS- keyboards, vocals
DIETER MOEBIUS-synthesizer, Nagoya harp & vocals
with

MANI NEUMEIER (Guru Guru)~drums

Even in general Krautrock terms, Deluxe is an unknown and often dis¬
missed record. That it is a classic will soon be recognised, for it is disturb¬
ing to hear “Monza” the same way as Neul’s “Hero” orLaDusseldorf’s “La
Dusseldorf ’ is disturbing. It’s just too goddamn early! But I digress. Deluxe
opens with the beautiful melody of the titletrack, a vocal and synthesizer
slow gallop close to mid-’70s Kraftwerk in atmosphere. The beautiful
choral melody repeats over & over and the song cycles around and around.
There is a timelessness about the music which, despite its crass sounds, is
spacey and utterly charming. Next up and clear to the end of Side 2 is the
pulsing and formidable “Walky-Talky”, at which point Mani Neumeier is
introduced. Had Jaki Leibezeit played the part, he would have rendered it
as Neu! would have played it - see the early Rother albums as proof. But
Mani Neumeier renders the beat far more into a horseride than a drive, and
he keeps the organic-ness of the track intact over its 10 minutes of pulse
existence. And then it’s on to Side 2, where “Monza” presents Step 2 of the

121

punk road from Neu ’75’s “Hero” and “After Eight”. The funny repeated
vocals are back over a sibilant drum beat and the most intense guitar play¬
ing. Words cannot describe this. Then it’s on to the low-key fades of “Notre
Dame” - a synthesizer drone piece with percussion effects and the tacky
Bavarian string synthesizers that La Dusseldorf later became so fond of.
“Gollum” could be from Sowiesoso (at this time only one year away from
recording) with its film theme melody and unfamiliar Neumeier drum¬
ming. Likewise, the last track “Kekse” is a Sowiesoso -type song of primi¬
tive programming and wistful child’s keyboards. Deluxe is hard to write
about, but it is a classic Krautrock LP.

32. Kraftwerk (Vertigo)

God knows where Ralf & Florian were at during this first LP. They con¬
structed grooves out of laboured bricklayer riffs which truly have no
groove at all. It’s so tight-assed you want to prise it apart with a hammer.
Kraftwerk opens with the monster Krautrock epic “Ruckzack”. The open¬
ing eternal synthesizer chord is peculiarly like a garage version of the
“Autobahn” beginning. Then it’s off into the strangest mix of Neu! rhythm
and a horrible jaunty Jethro Tull flute groove with no melody. Yet the whole
thing also reminds me of something off the second Suicide album. Anyway,
there’s all these references flying at you at once, and then it gets weird as
only Krautrock can get. A big foul atonal organ comes in, followed by
spacey Moog synthesizer, then the whole song speeds up, not gradually, but
out of nowhere. It speeds up and slows down as though one person playec
every instrument and is in perfect non-harmony with himself. So it’s -
remarkable feat which can only have been achieved by either Ralf c r
Florian conducting everyone. Then this great motorik groove becomes
horrid rhythmless noise, which fades out and back in a kind of phased ps;-
chedelic early Van Der Graaf Generator way. This continues for some tirm
It is extremely epic and cosmic like a roller-coaster on magic mushroom'
Whoa! And this just carries on continuing... phasing... disappearing.. rs
appearing...phasing again. It predates Neu! and it is very Neu! And it s i
remarkably rocking start to the first ever Kraftwerk album.

The other song on Side 1 is the far more experimental but similarly
berserk “Stratovarious”. At 12 minutes, this song starts as a meditatK c
though a very squealing one, then develops into a many headed mom:,
efficiently playing four instruments at once extremely accurately in terr»j
of timing and power of thrashout, but playing none of those instrument*
technically well in any virtuoso sense. When it finally can’t get any fasu*J
it gives up and falls in on itself. Then the song picks up an “L.A. Womaal
groove that can’t help getting a bit faster all the time. And the groove is \ erg
cranky and un-oiled. There’s creaking wa-wa pedals and a very Sc®
Machine fuzztone organ, Hamfisted and furious. It’s brilliant.

Side 2’s “Megaherz” is a Deep-space grill-out. We seem to get the musij
cal information at delayed intervals. It is quite beautiful. Rich tones sieJ
the music in thick heady stew of sound, especially in the light of the clo> ■

122

electric storm from hell they called “Vom Himmel Hoch”. Ha. What a
:rack. Doodlebugs, V1 and V2 missiles, flying bombs, call them whatever.
They just keep flying over the horizon, only to be destroyed by enormous
explosions. It’s a late blitz on Kraftwerk’s home town. The song begins to
pick up, and Kraftwerk actually begin to groove, turbulently, flailingly,
Jrums and synthesizer farts vying for the most grooove. It’s the inevitable
Kraftwerk stumble-riff which speeds up/slows down as usual with wild
synthesizer “conversations” and clanky-ness of an industrial East German
variety. Wild farty music that slips into ambience only to wrench off your
verotum the next moment. A synth-bass comes in, the whole thing picks up
'peed and it’s the Stooges at Toys R Us. Neu! and the Muppets join in and
’• s Truly a classic record. Of course, Ralf & Florian end it all with a fuck¬
ing huge bomb.

3 La Dusseldorf [ Decca)

C_AUS DINGER - guitar & vocals
-OMAS DINGER - percussion, vocals & light
~ ANS LAMPE - percussion & electronics

with

NIKOLAUS VAN RHEIN - keyboards & synthesizer
-ARALD KONIETZKO - bass

Klaus Dinger’s finest moment lasts for the whole of the first Dusseldorf
album. From the moment the needle touches down, it’s a sonic speed trip
through every street in Dusseldorf city. Klaus Dinger and his two drum-
■er/cohorts came up with such a stunning album here that punk rock hap¬
pened and Bowie copped a feel. We all know this, but why was it so good as
•d cause these effects? Because underneath the dumb-dumb exterior is a
treat songwriter and Mr. Hookline of all time. Dinger pulls a chorus out of
m single synthesizer line, he gives his whole manifesto in one word chants.
O: the whole record, there are four songs, three with words (the other being
intrumental monster hit “Silver Cloud”). The words are “Dusseldorf’
F rom the opening song “Dusseldorf”), “Dusseldorf” (again, from the fol-
fc*ing song, “La Dusseldorf”), and “Time” (From the song “Time”.) Yet
Kj -as Dinger’s melodies and sense of rhythm and build are masterful. They
hie weak rhythm guitar, like Neu!, and a powerful drum-led sound full of
fC*>mic surf-punk synthesizers. It’s like no-one, but shares a similar spirit to
fcfcue Sigue Sputnik. Uncool and cool. Masterful and arrogant. This is
■lentionally and wilfully amateurish genius.

123

34. LA DUSSELDORF- Viva (Nova/Radar)

KLAUS DINGER - vocals, percussion & guitars
THOMAS DINGER - drums & vocals
HANS LAMPE - drums & percussion
with

ANDREAS SCHELL-piano

NIKOLAUS VAN RHEIN - keyboards & synthesizers

HARALD KONIETZKO - occasional bass

Viva was Klaus Dinger’s most hopeful album of all, coming in latt
after the negative aspects of punk had finally kicked in. Here was the
whose sound had been the architectural blueprint on which Britw
was based, yet now he was singing of life and love over all. Viva opens
the French sung title-track, a post-Heroes two minutes 30 seconc
beauty, which segues into the funny Roxy/Mott the Hoople piano dm«
“White Overalls”. “New style hit the city,” wails Klaus. “It’s white
alls,” repeating “Overall overall overall” in a funny Bavarian pi"'
way. Many people cannot take this - the sheer Germanness of it
encoded in synthesizer sounds that evoke the lost days of Grimm'" ; a
Tales and Kindergarten. The long instrumental “Rheinita” is like “S
Cloud”, the hit single from La Dusseldorf’s first LP, motorik bassle^
ble-drums beating the synthesizers and pianos along an autobahn *
there are no cars, no people, only the forms of civilisation with the pec
was built for long gone. The short garden recording of the sound FX tn
“Vogel (Bird)” leads us into the ultra-singalong “Gelt (Gold)” which .
es Side 1. The double-drums again propel us into the most serene and
ous melodic land where string synthesizers and the wobbly funny anai
sounds are then repeated as vocal melodies. It is this singing of kevN
tunes that makes the whole trip so charming. Especially as Klaus D
sings of the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love” over the candy sweet fu/. .
tars and phased rhythms. Side one finishes with the repeated chorus: V
Love, Make Love, Make Love, Make Love Not War.” Right on...

Side 2 returns to the epic Kosmische territory of Hope with the side
20 minute of “Cha Cha 2000”. Here, Dinger takes us into a land inha
by Walter Carlos’ A Clockwork Orange soundtrack and the anno> -
agreeable sounds of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn. Dinger sings “The futw
calling” and tells us that we all need to change, to start looking deep
ourselves. It’s charming and naive yet utterly believable in the con:. ■
the whole Dusseldorf trip. I guess you’ll have to listen to this to dec.c.
know Krautfans who find this side of Dinger’s muse too mawkish
gooey. Me? I trust the guy all the way and I cry when I’m caught in its l
holding-pattern.

Other Records: Though the third La Dusseldorf LP JNDJVIDUELi
is not in my Top 50, it would certainly be in my Top 60. Dinger t< •
funny Bavarian sound to its logical conclusion on this final album, t \ t • ■
recording a classic song from Neu! as “Leiber Honig '81

124

MOEBIUS & PLANK - Rastakrautpasta (Sky Records)

te~ER MOEBIUS & CONNY PLANK-all instruments
IDlGER C2UKAY -bass

p!- » is an album of slobbering and drooling genius. Seven pieces of empty
behead on-the-beat Krautfunk. The album opens with “News”, samples
n TV news over a heavy bass slide-trombone groove. Actually, there’s no
I*" slide-trombone at all but that’s the effect created. The title track is the
br.niest dude-ingest track since the grooves on Lou Reed’s 1978 album
L'* et Hassle, another curve-ball out of nowhere. This inner-city Bavarian
kggae loads Lee Perry absurdities on top of Faust absurdities and com¬
bs^ them all with the New York of Dillinger’s Cocaine in my Brain. Huge
► uthesizer melodies with catchy-as-hell harmonies, some of which make
grit your teeth, over a garagey white There's a Riot Goin ’ On rhythm
The classic rock’n’roller monster is “Feedback 66”, the title alone
'•uld have made Suicide cream. The track itself growls along like electro-
fc.xiges, similar to the machine sounds of Suicide’s second album. And
if :> feedback (mike feedback... not even guitar feedback) all-the-way. If
H <?bius & Plank were not geniuses of the Teutonic-kind, they could not
br.e attempted such a speculative foray as Rastakrautpasta. But when it
bfis on its ass it doesn’t matter because, success or failure, it’s always
■kiny. Ha, they had no World Music aspirations, thank fuck.

Neu! (United Artists/Brain)

DINGER - percussion, guitar, vocals & Japanese banjo,

MCHAEL BOTHER - guitar, deliguitar, bass & double-bass

>ears ago, I lay in a caravan in Tamworth in Staffordshire and had my
jr.mde to ALL music changed. The piece, which was playing on the John
Show, was called “Hallogallo” and was the opening track from the first
LP bv Neu! Nothing ever sounded so different to me, and still nothing has
Itaftrseded “Hallogallo” for its sheer bravery of sound. Whilst most
knutrock groups layered their sounds in epic sheets of impressionism, the
feku! sound was a dry and upfront expressionism. It’s mystery was in its
■fusal to be mysterious - everything could be heard on first listen and thi -
a most beguiling quality. A bass-less motorik beat leads “Hallogallo
►xn a long fade into straight ahead E-major riffless grooving. Behind it.
■Kermittent backward guitars punctuate like seagulls on echo-less cliffy
there is no melody. There is no vocal. There is nothing to tell you where
you are in this seamless corridor with no end. If Neu! had split right after the
evening track of their first LP they would still have changed rock'n'roll.

But Neu! was a blueprint for a new kind of rock’n’roll with no past an j
• c immediate future, and it was to be seven years before the world caugh:
«c. if they ever truly did. On the rest of Side l, “Sonderangebot” explore -
•usic about to take off but never doing so, hanging in mid-air - its slow ed
.n backward cymbals billowing like speeded up clouds before fin.:

exploding into the watery wa-guitar/dry drum beauty of the now Neu-star
dard “Weissensee”. Side 2 continues in this low low-key manner. “Im
Gluck (In Luck)” retains the suspension of rhythm and the characterisi..
Michael Rother wa-guitar, whilst the album closer “Lieber Honig” is agai
drumless, led only by Klaus Dinger’s fragmented Japanese banjo ar.
breathy Damo Suzuki soundalike vocal. In the background is Rother
awesomely low bowed double-bass. Indeed, the entire first Neu! LP coui
have been a mantra supreme had they rejected one specific song. But tK
song is almost 10 minutes long and opens up wounds on Side 2 that bre~*
the listener out of any stupor - clearly the aim of the musicians. The track is
“Negativiand”, now another Neu! standard. With its shrieking drill ope
ing, “Negativland” is a studious non-groove which speeds up and slow*
down at will, the drums and bass louder than anything yet merely functior
al as seven years early post-punk Keith Levene/John McGeoch guite
howl hideous chordless and distorted. Neu! is never a disappointment e\ cm
after 23 years. It is never a beauty to get used-to.

37. NEU! - A/eu2(Brain/UA)

MICHAEL ROTHER - guitar, bass, piano, fiddle, zither, percussion & electronic5
KLAUS DINGER - Japanese banjo, 11-string guitar, percussion, Farfisa piano,
Bandonion, speaking, electronic & record-player

Aha, Neul’s great mistake/misjudgement - the one they fucked up the bud¬
get on and had to finish in a hurry. So what’s it really like? It’s a classic. Of
course. Like all true experimentalists, Klaus Dinger and Michael Rothtf
fell on their ass from time to time. But what’s an experiment for if the:- »
never a failure? And this failure is undoubtedly one of the most succe > s d
ever. Neu 2 begins with “Fur Immer (Forever)”, an 11 -minute cover ver' m
of “Hallogallo”, opener on Neu!. But this is a more lush and fertile, ga - ►
er landscape than the short-grassed plains of the Neu! LP. “Fur Immer t*
less experimental, warmer and more accessible, more driving too. But fr ■
then on in it’s a pop-art blitz of jagged off-the-beat edits and repeats *sr
something from Amon Duiil’s Psychedelic Underground. It’s a sounfl
effects record of endless churchbells and wind, of the classic Dinger be tf
threatening from time to time, until “Lila Engel (Lilac Angel)” burst' ir m\
end Side 1 with bassless clatterdrum-groove, machine-gun stutter - M
chord guitar and howled hollered vocals that always sound like:

“Oh, dee der dat dut dat duh-dah, Oh, dee der dat dut dat duh-d_fe. |

Oh, dee der dat dut dat duh-dah, Oh, dee der dat dut dat duh-dah
Side 2 is the real fuck off. There is no cohesion at all. “Neuschnee” at t»
proper speed and also at 7 8 rpm, “Super” at correct speed but also at 7 8 rp m
■and W>rpm. “Wa\\o F^ccrvlrhco'.” vs created thus*. “Fur Immer” is recor - <
with Klaus Dinger putting his fingers on the tape-machine whilst M
Rother and Conny Plank have a conversation in the control room. An N
Neu 2 vibe is extended right over into the sleeve where all photograr hi h
stuck down by large blobs of tape and the whole of Side 2 is crossed t \

126

written over in pen. The photos of Rother & Dinger are actually photo¬
copies of passport photobooth shots, and Dinger’s face is painted like a
glam superhero.

38. NEU! - Neu '75 ( UA/Brain)

KLAUS DINGER - voice, percussion, guitar, piano & organ
MICHAEL ROTHER - guitar, piano, synthorchestra, electronics & voice
THOMAS DINGER-drums
HANS LAMPE-drums

This is Neul’s perfect album. The reunion that transcended all their previ¬
ous history. Perhaps the lack of pressure brought everything into clarity for
just long enough. Neu ’75 begins with the totally typical motorik driving¬
ness of “Isi”, but all the guitars have been substituted with a schoolroom
piano of remedial efficiency and beautiful oboe-like synthesizers that bil¬
low and coo like Eddie Jobson, when he was still trying to sound like Eno
hadn’t left Roxy Music on Stranded. “Seeland” follows, a floating drifting
Nunset of a song with weeping dual lead guitars like an awesomely slowed
down New-age version of Thin Lizzy around “The Boys are Back in
Town”. Okay, that’s exaggerating, but the guitar is between that first
description and Bowie’s Heroes title-track. But then, this LP and La
Dusseldorf were the two blueprints for Big Dave’s Berliner period. The
'ide finishes with the Damo Suzuki-type space vocal of “Leb’Wohl”,
another schoolroom piano from another kindergarten - drifting, wistful and
charming with its obvious tapes of waves lapping on a beach.

Side 2 begins the transformation with the classic Ur-punk of “Hero”, in
which every proto-punk device is thrown into its six heavenly screamed
minutes. Klaus Dinger sings like a man possessed (though not possessed
with a singing voice) over banked Steve Jones massed guitars and the dou¬
ble drumming of life. This is followed by the 10 minute Krautgroove of “E-
Musik” - a kind of mantric Bavarian shuffle that subtly pulverises the flesh
nver a long time. Then it’s back to “Hero” again, here re-named “After
Eight”, and a much wilder version. Klaus Dinger has by now given up even
attempting to be coherent and just drools the words out. It’s the end of the
best Neu! LP of all. Buy it and find out.

39 POPOL VUH - Affenstunde (Liberty)

-LORIAN FRICKE - Moog synthesizer
HOLGER TRULZSCH - percussion
-RANK FIEDLER - synthesizer-mixdown

Beginning with the Splashing of Time’s pool, Affenstunde (Monkey Hour)
- >on pulses off into the cosmos with its curious Dr. Who meets the Clangers
->unds. Here, the big Moog was in its non-classical setting and setting the
avant-garde on its head. That this is 1970 seems extremely early, but

127

Florian Fricke was never so much ahead of time as out of time: that
appeared as an avant-gardist but was really a traditionalist-he^-
Visionary. The rhythm on the unwieldy-titled opening track “Ich Mj
Einen Speigel - Dream Part 4” is all generated from the synthesizer
distant planets signalling to each other. Occasionally, a blip and a beer .
there s a whole new cosmic messenger ready to make contact. “Drearr.F i
5 is wholly percussive, a mass of rhythms and contra-rhythms record *
the listeners face. The humorously titled “Dream Part 49” is a claustror -■
bic dense affair where an other worldly synthesizer checks out an un i nh *
ited planet. Side 2 features the 18 and a half minute title-track, which be -
with weird hollow percussion, an endlessly galloping exhilarating rh. ■ ■
which is Crusader-like, conjuring up images of the Saracens, and ex
Islam. Voices, real and synthesized, appear in the background, awev -
synthesizer screeches and then more hollow percussion. Finally, the u h
thing breaks down to a single synthesizer voice and what appears to be .
road sweeper passing slowly outside. It is not that but another of Frick
tricks. A low tone begins, a hanging bouncing pulse behind it, the bell-M
dips and melodically forms into a Keltic mantra of some great beauty - I
Cutler’s “Life in a Scotch Sitting-Room” is the mood that springs to mr .

1 here are also correlations with the “Telstar” theme, a kind of archet. -.
stellamess. It’s the use of early Moog which sounds similar to “Telst^- i
monophonic claviohne - a 1950s fore-runner to the synthesizer which lw
similarly sharp tones. As the developing Kelt piece unfolds, hollov pc
cussion invades and Fricke fools around with the modulation to get rid ...
lous but effective hooting sounds. Affenstunde is a marvel of atmosp- n
and innocence.*

*/r 5 hard to imagine that this first album would be merely a shadow c «
pared to the impending IN DEM GARTEN PHAROAS. Indeed, the t
track of that record is very similar to most of AFFENSTUNDE. Only n • -
“Vuh” kicks in does the High Authority of A Greater Life truly kick in. 5
following review.

40 POPOL VUH - In Den Garten Pharoas (Pilz)

FLORIAN FRICKE - Moog synthesizer, organ & Fender piano
FIOLGER TRULZSCFI - African & Turkish percussion
FRANK FIEDLER - Moog synthesizer mixdown

The title-track of In Den Garten Pharoas is the natural harmony of anc: -1
everyday life. Fast drumming in an underground cave, the scuUkwot -
and a waterfall where women are crouched at their daily washine
artificial Star Trek voice of a woman, a priestess, calling the faith
prayer The sound of water rushing by a community of endless ar.
souls, this track is more evocative of the damp Northern Europe of an. rrr
times than the Pharoah’s fertile but hot garden of 5000 years ago. H ~
Trulzsch s congas are soon beating the tribes down, welcoming them m
the ritual as Florian Fncke’s moog courses its way down the endless

128

:erranean channels long ago cut into the still forming earth. The congas
blow and blow until, after many minutes, the beautiful Fender piano cuts
through like a clear cool pond of lilies, frogs and a wild flute player sitting
on the bank. This is divine healing music - a wondrous elegiac Adam and
Eve trip. The theme reminds me of something from that classic Elektra LP
C osmic Sounds by The Zodiac. It is soothing in a familiar way, traditional
in its musicality but unorthodox in its context. There are only two tracks on
this album, and each could not be more different. Amidst roaring cymbals
and cathedral organ, like the death of a great statesman, “Vuh” opens its
gates to a great flood of energy, a coursing nutritious sound that cooks the
listener in their own aura and delivers their soul to the heavens. I have men¬
tioned earlier that this piece of High-energy is a little beyond the norm. Like
“Fly & Collision of Comas Sola” on T. Dream’s Alpha Centauri , “Vuh” is
a mantra to lose your mind to. Florian Fricke recorded this piece on the
great medieval organ at Skiftskirche Baumburg. Whoa, this ideal combina¬
tion of High Christian Tools and the Master Magician is all too obvious.
And by the time the Turkish Chimes begin their fury, it is all to obvious that
one of thee great meditational Holy works has been captured on tape.

41 POPOL VUH - Einjager & Seibenjager { Kosmische Musik)
FLORIAN FRICKE - piano & spinette

DANNY FICHELSCHER - e. & acoustic guitar, drums & percussion

DJONGYUN-vocal

with

OLAF KUBLER-flute

Danny Fichelscher’s spindly vibrating one-minute guitar opus “Kleiner
Kreiger” opens this bizarrely light and airy album. Then it’s pretty much
Florian Fricke’s trip the rest of the way. I can only describe the strange beat
of “King Minos” as Hip-Bland music, so inspiring yet using almost
Carpenters chords. Fricke’s piano is supported only by Danny
Fichelscher’s heavenly guitar and his crashing cymbal-led drumming.
"Morgengruss” continues the Hip-Bland edge with its ultra-melodic lead
guitars and 12-strings. But Fricke is a past master of sailing close to the
wind, and he never fails to drag some emotion or other out of the listener
that the listener has forgotten he ever had inside him. “Wurfelspeil” returns
to the “King Minos” place, this time supported by the flute of Olaf Kubler,
Amon Diiiil II’s producer. It is a dramatically uplifting music, especially
with the bass-less rock’n’roll drums. “Gutes Land” closes Side 1 with its
piano and cymbals peaceful piece, the theme consciously echoing the main
:heme from the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, then moving into
a kind of Television area where Danny Fichelscher’s rapturous guitars
'emind me of “Venus” from Marquee Moon. The whole of Side 2 is occu¬
pied by the epic title-track “One Soldier & Seven Soldiers”. The sleeve of
the album is one of Peter Geitner’s Kosmische Musik greats - a classical
Chinese print of a soldier pursued across water by flotillas of enemies,

129

surrounded by gematriac designs of suns and planets in gold and saffnj
yellow.

The tragic voice of Dyong Yun soars over a gentle piano theme, unti w
now familiar guitar and drum themes of Danny Fichelscher crash ir ic
intrude most gorgeously and ethereally. The music builds gradually ur 1
without becoming aware of it, it is flooding the room, Fichelscher's gL w
is strangulated and desperate, until all falls and the gentle introduc •
theme returns. It is a truly unexpected and magical music. I cannot ima_ *■
any but the German artists of this period getting away with this. In any o: -ar
hands, it could be horribly produced and ruined. As it is, the degree of sh. x
virtuosity is always overwhelmed by the minimal low-key production .. d
the deep and obvious transcendence of the players.

42. POPOL VUH - Hosianna Mantra (Kosmische Musik)

POPOL VUH (FLORIAN FRICKE) - piano & cembalo

CONNY VEIT -12-string & e.guitar

ROBERT ELISCU-oboe

DYONG YUN-vocals

KLAUS WEISE-tamboura

with

FRITZ SONNLEITNER-violin

This is the record on which Florian Fricke actually appeared as Popol Yuh
This is where he tried to combine the newness of his eastern musical di
coveries with the traditional church music he grew up with. It is spectac-
larly, beautifully timeless. The opening track, “Ah”, features lilting ob< <
playing the Tiny Tears melody, but whose classical name I’ve forgotte
The occasionally featured Japanese female singer, Djong Yun, makes ethc
real contribution to the album, especially on the second track “Kyrie”. Ar
the then 17-year old Connie Veit is the other star of the record, his gui:
ranging through eloquent restrained accompanying 12-string to stupe'
dous gone magical lead guitar. It’s hard to explain the devotional qualit\
this record. It sounds like a recording made on a retreat, perhaps at son c
cosmic convalescent home. And the low-key epic 10-minute title-trao
which closes Side 1 is truly healing music which treads a divine lir..
between the obvious eastern exploration of the times and the utterly unex¬
plored world (in the rock field certainly) of Christian Spirituality. Side I
opens with my two favourite tracks of all. Firstly, “Abshied” is a rippling
teetering and falling piano piece, reminiscent of parts of John Cale’s 77.-
Academy in Peril , but that is really wide of the mark and I’m struggling t
find a context to describe it. “Segnung” follows, another divine seagull gu
tared soar above the rippling piano waves and Robert Eliscu’s oboe an-
vocals of Djong Yun. The last beautiful dream song is “Nicht Hoch i n
Himmel (Not High in Heaven)”, strangely titled as the ever-upward Lc.
Underwood jazzy belltone guitar combines with Djong Yun’s vocals an-
the piano to sound utterly ascending, devotional and heavenly. Hosianna
Mantra sounds like nothing else I’ve heard.

130

43 TANGERINE DREAM - Electronic Meditation (Ohr)

EDGAR FROESE - 6 & 12-string guitars, organ, piano, broken glass
KLAUS SCHULTZE - drums, metalstick, whip
CONRAD SCHNITZLER - cello, violin, guitar

As pure experimentation goes, Electronic Meditation was a wild success.
The cello of Conrad Schnitzler dominates the opening moments of “Geburt
(Genesis)”, swooping high up the neck then down down down to the low¬
est notes, as Edgar Froese’s guitar begins to beat out a clanky non-rhythm
and Klaus Schultze’s furious tom-toms hesitate at first then burst through
the sound to establish a huge tribal beat. Flute dances around the track as
ugly crash guitar chords build... but it all falls to pieces. And noise,
rhythmless and annoying, is the only thing left. Gradually, an organ shape
develops, but “Genesis” is never more than a strung-out beginning to a very
wild record. And it’s only on the comparatively standard weirdness of the
13 minute “Journey Through a Burning Brain” that any kind of rock’n’roll
is achieved. Here, one rhythm guitar and drums support one of the most
bitty acidy fried solo guitar excursions of all time. Klaus Schultze’s drums
are stupendous: a blur of thunderous toms that shatter the VU meters whilst
the guitars, goaded by the drumming, begin to do battle in a way that no
American bands ever attempted. It’s a fucking riot that even the Texan
bands never came close to. If you think you’ve heard rock’n’roll without
hearing this LP, you are crazy. Side 2 opens with the experiments of “Cold
Smoke”, a kind of organ based feel-piece which slowly builds into a recog¬
nisable musical performance. The pounding drums eventually give up,
then try again, then... after what seems like ages, another furious jam
builds - the guitars are bitty bitty, feeding back constantly. Pure manic
inspiration. It’s as if Conrad Schnitzler’s guitar has to be struck constantly
just to curse the fucker from its annoying but fitting microphonic feedback.
The track cuts off at its height, horribly edited into the next free-rock piece.
“Asche zu Asche (Ashes to Ashes)” again features the feedback guitar as
Froese returns to his earthbound organ-playing. The drums still fuss and
freak out, but no-one goes with them for a while until, again, all hell breaks
loose. Finally, a hymnal organ and backward spoken words announce the
last track of the LP “Auferstehung (Resurrection)” and we are back in the
same territory as the opening track “Geburt”.

44 TANGERINE DREAM - Alpha Centauri( Ohr)

CHRIS FRANKE - percussion, lotos flute, pianoharp, zither & synthesizer
EDGAR FROESE - guitar, gliss bass, organ, voice & coffee machine
STEVE SCHROYDER - organ, voice, several echo machines, iron stick
with

UDODENNEBOURG-flute & words
ROLAND PAULYCK-synthesizer

It was at this time that I loved, feared and was in awe of T. Dream. My older
friend, Cott, he of the Revox reel-to-reel and the money of one who was 17,

131

before ite Hood. ,ol “ d "“' h ' ,th 1 «>—J .he ipoctfype

aop-rnn rt,,Z7mdJ NMng f™*™®","”?’

=™r’«s,:L^rf

somely restricted sound the organ h/r^ 113 ° pemng U P °f this awe-
widen. The false star, of ‘Sunrise ij

introduction is complete. And then the slow hniWk ‘ S ° Ver ’ and ,he

T. Dream’s greatest ever tracks “Flv & C ii' d be f ms again lnt0 °ne of
huge 13-minute epic is notSnSni 00 ^™ ° f Comas Sola”. This
ents. But the vast sweeps of cosmi ’ ^ gh 11 has some of the ingredi-
organ ac, as ^ flatfooted «*“«*

drums and flute, can be hung It’s as thouJh fh” 181 " 3SPeCt ° f freak out ’ the
vibrations but cannot hear the notes Kb mUS ' C ‘ anS feel each others '
relationship between the backing t™ ° thersare P la ymg, similar to the
Beefheart’s Troutmask Repta And ^ V ° Ca,S ° n Ca P tai "

Chris Franke’s jazz based tom-rnmwt "" tens,ty reaches i<* height,

contribution to “Journey Through" a° U o S1SaSCrazyasKIausSc hul tze ’s
Meditation. On Side 2, flwtitkAraclds a vast??'*’ ^ °" Electr °™

Piece utilising synthesizers flutes an H th 122 ‘ minute Kosmische mood-

follow-up, Zeit. Steve Schmww’o d the , first leamn gs towards the huge

here, a precursor to the forthcoming TDre^ ° rgan , has the greatest sound

Conrad Schnitzler cello sound from L first LpTutS^ mirr ° ring the
no part in T. Dream’s future after rhk rre hk Schroyder would have
Froese and relocating to Ash Ra Tp , u bei " g b ° 0ted out b V Ed gar
Group in Germany. The a£umfini^T^ 0 ^ greatest K °^ische

T. Dream have always been gmafw th atm 3 h beaUtiful TeUt ° nic chorale -

to bring it all out - belching or fartinp h U ^aT V ° 1CeS and never afraid
meant getting the right effect. 8 ’ W ° U d be n ° problem to them if it

45 TANGERINE DREAM - Zeit (Ohr )

SSS=~;:~

JOHANNES LUCKE-cello

CHRISTIAN VALLBRACHT-cello

132

my favourite T. Dream LP, it is by far the most played and the one I would
kiss Edgar Froese hardest for creating. 80 minutes of utter Kosmische
beauty. Music that hangs in Deep-space. Songs the size of planets with
titles the size of cities: “The Birth of Liquid Plejades”, “Nebulous Dawn”,
“Origin of Supernatural Probabilities” and the title track “Zeit”. Released
on one CD, Zeit is a perfect riot. I spin it over & over for hours on end. Like
the Tony Conrad CD, its remarkable unchanging unfolding near-static
barely-shifting vegetable organic-ness takes over the room and permeates
the whole house. If you leave to pee or make tea, the room in which Zeit is
playing becomes that room. You know that anyone calling in the middle of
its playing will never see that room in the same light ever again. And that’s
about all I can say. Look at the line-up of musicians above. It sounds like
that. Imagine tripping and seeing the testcard moving on TV. Zeit is quite
like a planet-sized version.

46 TANGERINE DREAM - Atem (Ohr)

EDGAR FROESE - mellotron, guitar, organ, voice

PETER BAUMANN - organ, VCS3 synthesizer, piano

CHRIS FRANKE - organ, VCS3 synthesizer, percussion & voice

Tangerine Dream’s fourth LP Atem was recorded in the wake of their
Kosmische double masterpiece Zeit and its aberrant Barrett Floyd-like 45
“Ultima Thule”. Here, they managed to cross-pollinate the two ideals to
dramatic and often violent effect. But I’ll tell you this: Atem is as glorious
as a Cecil B. De Mille movie and about as cinematic. The pounding tom¬
tom drums and the fanfare of mellotron on the opening bars of the title-
track is like background music for building the pyramids to. A huge slab of
pounding meditational rock that eventually subsides into a massive groovy
meditation. This takes up all of Side 1, whilst Side 2 opens with the won¬
derful flutey “Fauni-gena”, whose melody I always suspect the Fall ripped
off for their early classic “Repetition”. The mellotron again totally domi¬
nates the soundscape, and when “Circulation of Events” drifts in, there’s
barely any way of noticing that a new track has appeared. A growing gen¬
erating Kosmische breathing life-of-its-own monster, it inhabits the same
territory as Cluster, but could also be a throwback to the sounds of Zeit.
Wahn finishes the album: it s that track I told you about earlier where they
get all chimpy and start primal-screaming their heads off. I so admire T.
Dream at these times. Art must be achieved any fucking possible way and
here it is in Top-gear. Drums and mellotron again punctuate the scene and
turn it into a garagey groove of truly unlikely effects. For me, this was the
last of the classic releases. After this, they fell into the ‘easy listening’ of
Phaedra, Rubicon and so on. But this was their beginning — six long years
of experimentation and a roaring spectacular success.

47 KLAUS SCHULT2E - IrrlichtlO hr)

KUUS SCHULHE-synthesi^ voice. „„

*'?»S„v i : , ' 0 “ eb, , | KI “ “ He

Rumbling out of him? " 10n P u ec ^ this bit of Ancient

Gewitter^energy’ £££ 2 ?,? —’ -

sweeps the listener clean into the air A ft fo9l “ng exhilarating that it
moment and... wahhhhhhhhhhhh the air^n ^ ° f Stri " gS ’ a hesitam
orchestral ascent begins Then it’s an ah 1 ls clea ved in half, as the
Zzzzzzzzzz of Klaus’ synthesizers take nv n St ° P , ^ the now familiar
One a midrange large engine hiss Out of ^ 3 ° W ,OW aircraft dr one.
tra a cheap unmysterious kind of’reverb thTake"! “T ° rches -
And melodies are to the rear all torn, hi- ^ ? y ° U back t0 chiid hood.
synthesizer. And so it is that the orchestra ° D dnft,n g weight-lagen

strange ugly tone-less synthesizer mantra al^ ° Ut throu g hou t this
that the orchestra punctuates the snare ’ , most Stockhause n in the way
around the synthesizer. But finely KlauT’ orn h harmonisin g the air

Phased berserk thing in what is now toe Jyp caSs kT, ‘° ^ ° Ver ’ a

chunter. But this grumbling builds slowlv to a fim , Schultze min °r chord
wild minor chords and full-voiced Teutonic _Sca e com plainathon, the
the height of power. It’s an insnirina nerf aaaaaaaaaaaahs coming out at
deep down resolve. All this floods right ™ anCe ’ ful1 of physicality and
magical transference of ideas. And Klans t 0 " ‘° the t3pe With a hi g%
vamping it up, switching the tone adiusters^nn^ 8 ° eS 'u° far ' He starts
chords for who-knows-how-long and Lt kZn’ “ tchin « 7 0u on 'wo
Noogies. And just when you think it’ll nerer end" 8 , h V ^ the pSychic

and caught in all kinds of weird repeated w if’ d ° eS ’ Crashin § to a stop
so of crashes, in comes the low-key"r aftera mina te or
next onslaught... In stark contrast Si ! gancoda \ revita hsing itself for the
beaming vibrations of both sound and HahtV* ff lr ! tual and cos mic planet
caught in an asteroid storm of the d ^ ' the hstener - I( is like being
threatening but it is not, only massaging a^dT"^^ 3 ' V3riety ' 11 feels
constancy of the assault. 8 8 d kneadln S the mind with the

48 KLAUS SCHULTZE - B, ack Dance (Brain,

string acoustic,Orchestra' heS ' Zer '° r9an - pian0 ' Percussion, phase-trumpet 12-
ERNST WALTER SIMON -bass voice

Schultze LP I^ver'toighf In'1974^-”"f Wasthefirst Klaus

..» te ^ tov , Andal( r £|49 - = ^««

134

though he had recorded the as yet unreleased Picture Music but was with¬
out a record deal at the time of that album’s recording. Black Dance is a
mainly drum-machine and acoustic guitar led record, all the instruments
conspiring to make the music far more tangible than previous recordings.
Two very long pieces form the backbone of Black Dance: the 18 minute
“Ways of Change”, with its fast picked 12-string, congas and bongos; and
the huge 22 minute “Voices of Syn”, a phased-drumbox led synthesizer
groove that begins in a soup of bass voice and organ. This last piece occu¬
pies all of Side 2 and features Klaus’ typical jamming over a slightly de¬
tuned and unvarying minor chord organ. As a 17 year old, this record was
my seduction LP, the only one I had. The final piece, “Some Velvet
Phasing”, is more standard Klaus - a rhythmless synthesizer shift, yet still
operating in the same atmospheric territory of the rest of the album. Black
Dance works peculiarly well as a complete package, and is ideal for repeat¬
ed plays. It is unlike his other albums of the period, and is closer in style to
the later Dune. It’s easy to spend a whole evening just flipping Black Dance
back and starting again.

49 WALTER WEGMULLER - Tarot (Kosmische Musik)

WALTER WEGMULLER - text & voice

JERRY BERKERS (Wallenstein) - bass

JURGEN DOLLASE (Wallenstein) - mellotron, organ & piano

HARTMUT ENKE (Ash Ra Tempel) - wa-guitar

MANUEL GOTTSCHING (Ash Ra Tempel)-wa-guitar

KLAUS QUADRO SCHULTZE - synthesizers & voice

HARALD GROSSKOPF (Wallenstein) - drums

WALTER WESTRUPP-acoustic guitars, mandolin, pipes, voice, etc.

BERND WITTHUSER - spoken word
ROSI MULLER & DIETER DIERKS-choir

This huge double-LP is as all-encompassing as rock’n’roll gets, proving
that Krautrock’s greatest strength was its ability to consume all American
and British music, assimilate it, and then regurgitate it all as though the
Mothers, the Velvets, the Doors, the Stones, the Fugs, the freerock and free-
jazz of Detroit, and the experimentalism of Germany could all be thrown
into some Kosmische Pot. They truly proved that it could. Beginning like
the Hendrix-y side of early Funkadelic, “The Narr” is tearing jagged old-
fashioned funk like Detroit loved to make. Jurgen Dollase’s piano is cock¬
tail-mayhem - really the Funkadelic LP is the best comparison. In contrast,
“Der Magier” comes on like some Kosmische night-rally, all screaming
synths and freaky keyboards before jumping in with both feet to a one-
chord driving blues that barely establishes itself before breaking down
again as Walter Wegmuller makes his proclamations. But explaining the
diversity of this album should not blind anyone to its obvious total cohe¬
sion, for there is a unified theme and manner of playing which pushes this
music out of the reach of other rock’n’roll musicians. It is the performance
- the confidence and the sheer ability to make decisions on the spur of the

135

wh L ThV P f U lndlv,dual P leces which are intended to work as a

stur

YorkLo°uR^ed °ffi° baS ? d island music - hut is followed with the Ne»
sTreni of the r ® ^ HerrScher ” ™ un-Kostnische as i, gets The
n h f h C ° snuc Couners is their individual ability and their lack of

nab h i 8 the 1 f e L mag,c men ' Like Golowin, Walter Wegmuller
grabs the attention with the same bollocks as Tim Mnn-ic a •

meaning without the need to be con tantlv in tte

There ’ 0 C ° UnerS ' They wanted to do d all, and they fucking Achieved'"

album”,lTtheS8B ™

oO W1TTHUSER & WESTRUPP - Trips & Traume (Ohr 56016)

WAl tfr^!I^V.? ER " ac0ustic & e - 9uitar ' vocals

™ b^t™

ssssrassaa^.

136

Firing on all cylinders at once, Trips & Traume came on like some Jerry
Yester-produced monster session, an audaciously loose and freewheeling
muse. In actual fact it was the multi-instrumentalist talents of Walt
Westrupp which gave this impression - zithers, psalters and all manner of
traditional instruments contributing to the stew. Trips & Traume begins
with the Thomas Rother poem “Lasst Uns Auf Die Reise Gehen”, a beauti¬
ful reflection on the journey of a man’s life over a mystical drummerless
groove. The spindly free-jazz guitar on the empty and epic “Trippo Nova”
is pure Lee Underwood, somewhere between Buckley’s Blue Afternoon
and Happy Sad. I’m using any reference I can to explain these songs, but it
would be unfair to suggest that the trip is in any way borrowed. On Side 2,
“Illusion I” is an instrumental version of Tim Buckley’s “Phantasmagoria
in Two”, but that in no way lessens the LP. Trips & Traume is truly its own
Teutonic master, inspired by the American scene but achieving exclusive¬
ly European results, using voices as a constant horizon of sound and
fuelling the songs with flute-driven melodies and bizarre FX. The eight
minute “Orienta” is one of the most beautiful Kosmische pieces ever, work¬
ing in the same territory as Sergius Golowin’s “Die Weisse Aim”. A repeat¬
ed cyclical mandolin and Fiddler on the Roof “Doi Doi Doi” vocals over
which Witthuser speaks clearly and ominously as the whole thing builds
faster and faster to a fabulous mass of male and female singers, the man¬
dolin tumbling and dancing. On Side 2, the spoken monster “Karlschen”
hangs in mid-air like Syd Barrett’s “Golden Hair”. As a non-German
speaker, the female voice immediately sends me off into late childhood -
any spoken German is a mysterious magical incantation to a Krautrock-fan.
I just wish the LP was much lojiger; it’s all over far too soon. Trips &
Traume ends in the jaunty “Nimm doch einen joint, mein freund”, a Euro¬
folk Que Sera Sera singalong advocating marijuana:

“Some people say Hash makes lush, but give me a joint.” Right On.

137

Bibliography

Bangs, Lester - Psychotic Reactions & Carbure v - r?
Barritt, Brian - The Road of Excess Unpublished jas
Bussy, Pascal - The Can BookS.A.F.

Ehnert, Gunter - Rock In Deutschland Taurus Be: * ;
Elliot, David - Black Forest Gateau Neu! comp at
Fallowell, Duncan - The Can Melody Maker
Freeman, A. - Faust, Breaking all the Rules Auc or v - i
Freeman, A. - Classic Labels 3: Ohr Records Histo r . ^
Freeman, A. - The Many Faces ofAmon DuulAup %
Freeman, A. - Klaus Schultze, Beyond Recall Ana c r
Freeman, S.-T he Enigma of Florian Fricke Audio r Maga *
Kaiser, Rolf-Ulrich - Das Buch Der Neuen Pop-mus • ■ : ■

Kaiser, Rolf-Ulrich & Staff writers - "Die Deutsche n = •?

Stone Magazine photo-article 1971 .

Kurtz, Michael - Stockhausen, A Biography Faber & Facer
Miles, C. - A Short History of T. Dream: Stratosphe'6 ~ r
Nettlebeck, Uwe - Faust Manifesto Free Leaflet Issue: r
Schober, Ingeborg - Tam Der Lemminge RoRoRo

Whitworth, Armstrong - Deutsch Nepal (A Fleeting Daoc -
1967-75) "Strange Things Are Flappening" Magaz^e

138

knowledgements

■K a thanks must go to the following people without whom this book
Lduo nave been much harder to write:

IS FREEMAN - These two musicologist brothers have probably forgot-
prye about Krautrock than I'll ever know. They have kept me
Mor— ed of all CD re-issues and rare vinyl coming up for grabs and
fcaas* 5 ''tly illuminated my sometimes apparently dimmed pathway, both
pf* countless articles from their fine magazine Auction and also under
p* cr the phone with numerous snippets of Krautmyth & Kosmische
■cac-cpera. Thanks again.

~ROCK RICHARD GRAVETT - A chance meeting with Richard's girl-
on : who works at the Poland Street branch of Reckless Records in
pLaro:'' led me to Richard, who sold me all the Cosmic Courier & Amon
uu yinyl, then proceeded to find and send me all kinds of cassettes,
kffis 'ecords and transparencies of all the sleeves I could not get hold
■I Thanks very much, man.

IA.S 3ARRITT - I was introduced to Brian Barritt by our mutual friend
Chalk, who had told me that Brian's book about the Neolithic
car- 5 of Loughcrew, in Ireland, was a stoned gas of epic proportions.
We' Brian gave me permission to use portions of his unpublished
fapmscript The Road of Excess (" It's all information, Julian''), including
• crater on the Cosmic Couriers called "The Kaiser", my joy was
e3r*c e:e. Thank you, Brian.

D*£W LAUDER -1 sat in Andrew's office and discussed how, in 1969,
IfcOfanm, then manager of Can and an international pop-star himself
rCrce r ella/Rockerfella"), walked into the then teenage Andrew's
ifeerTy Records office in Ladbroke Grove, London, and gave him No.

>10 :* the limited first pressing of Can's first LP Monster Movie. Special
ror«s*orthe Neu! and Amon Duul II stories, and extra thanks for
g the foresight to sign them in the first place.

LA DEUTSCH - I'd like to thank the former Gavin Wall, now one half of
T>ec'c^pTabhunter, for kick-starting me back into Krautrock mode in
Su-'-er 1991 (C.E.). Had I not heard the strains of Neu 2 coming from
Tie front of the tour bus, this all may never have happened. Then

•gsr

p i \ COPE-... An awesome devotion & love to my darling wife, who
*4lthis book with unbelievable fastidiousness. Though, as she says
^•rse f: "lam an Ash Ra Tempel groupie... so I had motivation."

139

V3RQ3R

PRESS RELEASE

in preparation; o place to be performed in time, during Foust’i forthcoming tour of England
not so much an experience as o situation, to which one is highly subject.

° ft* an which & Pourt appear also includes the Heisenberg principle,

ont.-matter relativity, Hitler, relativity, cybernetics, D N.A.. game theory, etc.
something's In the air".

absurd decisions

this Is the time we ate in love with, the Absurd was ushered in & seated in the place of honour.

h«^r ri ? L Abwrd im P° fent - Wlad. the Absurd, it I, now decided,

ha* medicinal properties'. the Absurd, if is now discovered, decides'.

ft! lfh,r*h Hm * W|th ° n# ‘* eor *’ •*'*»*«• each moment - distinct « a

£nlS !* ‘ , ** ^ y °° y0,J h * is fh< * 'ocotion drawn toward,

definition by attending to this outrageous cacophony?

W# *? in ft* Wi ! h - ft ,Ko mid « ° f ^-^ouzlk time tick, like o bomb.

In Its midst the »w fuse of lov, is snuffed out & relit ogain & again*, why all this strangeness ?
the answer is something to do with polishing mirrors to reflect time & love . o reflectiw! hos
no memory, that It the strangeness of it. but If mean, nothing.

nothing

Fm«t have mentioned working a, they do in the space between concept & realisation

*Z wowid ,,k# * p,ay fw you rh# ^ of H-

then we could talk about altering that consciousness.
then we could forget about music'.

“Hollowing cave, of bass with mallet, of wool they played
leaving the treble shriek to gel in a silt In the moon they played 8 .

V»S» fcreont*. 2 Vtmsm V»rt, I tS F<

Ttkpkema: Oi.*»iOOI k 0t.*»«M2

The Faust Manifestos were available free to everyone on the 1973 Faust tour

Henry Cow posters were also available free, but I threw mine away as soon as I got home.

Detail from the centre¬
opening gimmicksleeve

of Ash Ra Tempers

eponymous IstLP.

Ash RaTempel: Manuel,
Klaus & Hartmut could
play for up to 5 hours at a
time without looking at
each other.

Left: This is Mani
Neumeierof Guru Guru,
a musical giant of a man
who records naked in
Thailand today. He also
played with Harmonia.

GURU

MoebiusS Plank Rastakrautpasta

Klaus Schultze Irrlicht
Guru Guru U.F.O.

Kosmische Musik Ohr Records
Sampler

Kraftwerk Kraftwerk
Popol Vuh Hosiarwa Mantra

STOP PRESS: 2ND EDITION NEWS

Go & listen to Agitation Free's Last album. Their 23 minute epic "Looping" is a
transcendental Faust/Ash Ra Tempel burn-up. Horribly rare and unavailable until
now (January 1996 C.E.). Spalax Records released this sucker just for you.

Cluster Cluster 7 (gatefold)

Popol Vuh In Den

Garten Pharoas

The Can Soul
Deserts

Amon Diiiil II

Phallus Dei (reissue)

Amon Diiiil

Paramechanical
Worlds (back
sleeve)

Witthiiser&

Westrupp

Trips & Traume

A HEAD HERITAGE COSMIC FIELD GUIDE: 5 CLASSIC IMAGES OF KRAUTROCK

When Glam-rock appeared around 1972, the
West German bands again took it all, assimilat¬
ed it, and came out looking funnier & more con¬
vincing than any groups had since Funkadelic/
Parliament. On Amon Diiiil Il's Viva La Trance,
the group successfully combined theatrical
animal costumes, harlequin Teutonics, and the
current snakeskin platforms and fake furs, a la
Sly Stone meets Bowie. Even more ridiculous
was Can's sudden pursuit of glam in a Velvet
Underground style. I was very uncomfortable to
see all these older guys poured into leathers &
shades, especially as Michael Karoli, the only
young pretty one in the group, was photo¬
graphed on his knees in a particularly submis¬
sive pose, surrounded by 3 pouting middle-aged
Sugardaddies.

But Krautrockwasthe German pre-punkself-
awareness trip of all time. And these groups had
suddenly plugged into where the post-war
British psyche still had the Germans pegged -
as the Bogeyman Rotter of all Europe. And they
exploited the situation in thee most genius of
ways. From Amon Diiiil I to Amon Diiiil II, via
Faust, Cluster, Can and Guru Guru - Krautrock
groups played this role. Here are my 5 favourite
Krautrock images:

1. Faust IV opened with their 12 minute epic
called Krautrock. (A huge double-album sam¬
pler on the hip German Brain label was also
called Krautrock, and after Conrad Schnitzler's
time in Tangerine Dream & Kluster, one of his
early solo LPs also contained a track called
"Krautrock".)

2. Amon Diiiil's "Mr. Kraut's Jinx" and "La
Krautoma" both appeared on the sprawling
1975 double-album, Made In Germany, the first
(and only?) Krautrock-opera.

3. The first 'kraut' reference of all was on Amon
Diiiil Is 1969 "Mama Diiiil and her Sauerkraut-
band Start Up!" from their first LP Psychedelic
Underground.

4. Cluster's Dieter Moebius and his producer,
Conny Plank, released an album of Bavarian
reggae-meets-New York-fuzz and called it
RastaKrautPastal

5. But the greatest Krautrock image of all is
surely the sleeve of Amon Diiiil Il's Live in
London. A gigantic German-helmeted Storm-
trooper insect claws the London Post-Office
tower from its foundations as flying-saucers lay
the city to waste overhead.

In hindsight, Krautrock was not remotely 'hippy'
in its modern post-punk definition. It was soar-
ingly idealistic and hard as nails. This
Kosmische Musikwas played by painted freaks
and longhairs whose attitude had never left the
idealism or the communes/collectives of the
mid 1960s. Krautrock's heart was still in the
MC5's guitars and the White Panthers' civil
insurrection of 1969 Detroit, and the sheer
moment of Andy Warhol's 1966 Exploding
Plastic Inevitable. Guru Guru even tried to
redeem the swastika on the eponymous Guru
Guru LP, placing it in the centre of the record-
sleeve, and reversing it on an ancient woven
design, therefore restoring the swastika to its
original peaceful direction. (It was a brave
idealism but, like The Swastika Redeemer, a
contemporary New York artist who is tattooed
with hundreds of different & ancient swastikas
all over his body, it was hardly enough to obliter¬
ate such recent memories).

But Krautrock can only truly be defined in
hindsight, as many of the groups were only
intent on capturing the Moment. There are more
classic extended true 20 minute-freakouts with¬
in the sleeves of Krautrock LPs than in the
British & American music of all time. And all in
space-punk gatefold sleeves, too. Albums were
impossible to judge as they came out because
they defied analysis alongside anything else but
other Krautrock. And for all its '60s idealism, the
West German scene was never in a stasis - it
did not yearn for some lost undefined Golden-
age, but constantly dipped into the new music
forms that arrived and adapted them as its own.
This ability to assimilate all the best of the New
conspired to make Krautrock a substantial art-
form with considerable stamina. And so power¬
ful has the term Kraut remained that its modern
connotation to any German Head is as a
description for the finest Marijuana ■

Front cover image of Shrattaken
from Amon Diiiil Il's LP Yeti

Krautrocksampler
designed by Jane Stevenson

£7.99 net in UK

Head Heritage

is the publishing division of

1/AI/l+rJ DPI Dm/OOTJ

Internet Archive Audio

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